Here are the key facts about Nana Dzagnidze, Georgia’s attacking grandmaster and one of the most decorated women in modern chess — every one checked against reliable sources. Where a number can go stale, we’ve stamped it; where a fact is uncertain, we’ve left it out.
The essentials
Nana Dzagnidze at a glance
- Full name: Nana Dzagnidze (Georgian: ნანა ძაგნიძე)
- Born: 1 January 1987, in Kutaisi, Georgia (then part of the Soviet Union)
- Country: Georgia
- Title: Grandmaster (GM) — the full open title, earned in 2008
- Peak FIDE rating: 2573 (2015)
- Signature style: sharp, aggressive, attacking
Titles and records
- Grandmaster (GM), 2008. She holds the full open Grandmaster title — not just the Woman Grandmaster (WGM) title — a distinction earned by only a small number of women in chess history.
- Women’s World Blitz Champion, 2017. She won the title in Riyadh, finishing clear first with 16.5/21 at the King Salman World Blitz Championship.
- European Women’s Individual Champion, 2017. She won in Riga with 8.5/11 — the first Georgian ever to take the European women’s title.
- Olympiad team gold, 2008. She was part of the Georgian squad that won the Women’s Chess Olympiad in Dresden.
- Olympiad individual gold (board one), 2014. At Tromsø she posted the best score of any top board in the event, ahead of then-world-#1 Hou Yifan.
- FIDE Caissa Award, best female player of 2017. FIDE’s recognition of her standout championship year.
Her full ladder of titles
Dzagnidze climbed every rung of the FIDE title ladder:
- Woman International Master (WIM) — 2001
- Woman Grandmaster (WGM) — 2003
- International Master (IM) — 2004
- Grandmaster (GM) — 2008
Each title marks a higher rating threshold and a set of strong performances against tough fields — a clean record of steady progress from talented junior to full grandmaster.
Junior prodigy
Long before the senior titles, Dzagnidze was a world-beating junior:
- World Girls Under-12 Champion, 1999.
- World Girls Under-20 Champion, 2003 — and she won it by a full two points over the rest of the field, a rare margin of dominance in a world youth event.
Team and Grand Prix highlights
- FIDE Women’s Grand Prix, Jermuk 2010 — she won this leg outright, inside the official Women’s World Championship cycle.
- FIDE Women’s Grand Prix, Lausanne 2020 — she shared first place.
- 2024 FIDE Women’s Candidates Tournament — she competed in the eight-player event that decides the challenger for the Women’s World Championship, a stage reserved for the very best in the world.
The openings she’s known for
Her repertoire is built for a fight. As Black she plays the Sicilian Defense (including the sharp Najdorf and the flexible Taimanov) and the classical Nimzo-Indian; as White she favors the flexible English Opening and 1.d4 structures.
There’s a full breakdown in her openings.
Fun facts and trivia
- New Year’s Day baby. Dzagnidze was born on 1 January 1987.
- A double crown in one year. In 2017 she was both European Women’s Champion and Women’s World Blitz Champion — two titles, two completely different formats, one season.
- She beat the world #1’s field. At the 2014 Olympiad her board-one gold meant she out-scored every other nation’s top player, including Hou Yifan, the highest-rated woman in the world at the time.
- From a chess superpower. She comes from Georgia, a small country that has produced two Women’s World Champions — Nona Gaprindashvili and Maia Chiburdanidze — and remains one of the deepest wells of women’s chess talent anywhere.
- A true attacker. Her greatest strength — sharp, tactical, attacking chess — is exactly the style that shines brightest in blitz, which helps explain that 2017 World Blitz crown.
Georgia: a chess country
To really understand Dzagnidze’s achievements, it helps to know where she comes from. Georgia is a small nation of under four million people, yet it has one of the proudest women’s chess traditions on the planet. Nona Gaprindashvili was Women’s World Champion from 1962 to 1978; Maia Chiburdanidze then held the crown from 1978 to 1991 — two decades of the world title living in Georgia. Generations of Georgian girls grew up seeing women win chess at the very highest level, and that culture produced a steady stream of strong grandmasters.
Dzagnidze is a direct heir to that tradition. Carrying Georgia on board one at Olympiads — and winning individual gold there in 2014 — put her among the leaders of the country’s next great chess generation. Her results aren’t just personal milestones; they’re another chapter in one of chess’s great national stories.
FAQ
How old is Nana Dzagnidze? She was born on 1 January 1987, which makes her 39 in 2026.
Is Nana Dzagnidze a full Grandmaster? Yes — she holds the full open Grandmaster (GM) title, earned in 2008, in addition to having earned the Woman Grandmaster title earlier.
What is Nana Dzagnidze’s peak rating? Her peak classical FIDE rating was 2573, reached in 2015.
What is Nana Dzagnidze best known for? Winning the Women’s World Blitz Championship and the European Women’s Championship, both in 2017, plus Olympiad gold with Georgia — all played in an exciting, attacking style.
What nationality is Nana Dzagnidze? She is Georgian, born in Kutaisi, and represents Georgia in international chess.
Keep exploring
Meet her in full on the Nana Dzagnidze profile, replay her best games, study her playing style, tour her openings, trace her rating history, or browse all chess players.
Written and fact-checked by the Chess Lab Academy Editorial Team · Facts verified against Wikipedia, her FIDE profile, and Chess.com, as of July 2026 · Last verified 2026-07-10 · How we verify content.