While segregation of gender in chess wasn't always true -woman and men often played together, both in Literature and reality before 1800; Shakespeare's only chess scene has Miranda playing Ferdinand in the last act of The Tempest; many paintings depict men and women playing at chess together; Ben Franklin, as well as Paul Morphy were fond of playing against ladies. Women, however, were often barred from the private clubs as well as the coffeehouses and the taverns where these chess clubs developed in the 19th century.
By the middle of that century, female players started to gain their own chessic distinction - separate from men . The first chess clubs exclusively for women were organized in The Netherlands in 1847. The first chess book written by a woman, The ABC of Chess, by "A Lady" (H.I. Cooke), appeared in England in 1860 and went into 10 editions. The first women's tournament was sponsored in 1884 by the Sussex Chess Association.
Women also gained a certain prominence in postal and problem chess during this period. An American woman, Ellen Gilbert, defeated a strong English amateur, George Gossip, twice in an international correspondence match in 1879 - announcing checkmate in 21 moves in one game and in 35 moves in the other!! Edith Winter-Wood composed more than 2,000 problems, 700 of which appeared in a book published in 1902.

                       Vera Menchik

 The first woman player to gain attention in direct OTB competition with men was Vera Menchik (1906-44) of Great Britain.  She was, in effect, the godmother of modern women's chess.

                       
                  Vera Menchik playing Marcel Duchamp

Her father was from Czechoslovakia. Her mother was British. Vera Menchik was born in 1906 in Moscow. They all moved to England in 1921. She was 15 and won the British Girls’ Championship. Geza Maroczy, the great chess player moved to Hastings, England from his native Hungary after WWI. He noticed Vera's aptitude and became her instructor. In 1927 she won the newly formed first Woman's World Championship. Out of eleven games...she won 10 and drew 1. She was untouchable! To understand her relative strength to other women chess players of the time consider this: she won every Woman's World Championship up to her death. This tournament was held in 1930, 1931, 1933, 1935, 1937 and 1939. She played a total of 83 games, of which she only lost 1. Her sister, Olga Menchik Rubery was also a good player and a world challenger in 1935 and 1937...but not of the same caliber. Vera Menchik-Stevenson, her sister and their mother were killed in a bombing raid when a German V-1 rocket hit her home in Kent in 1944. At the time of her death, Vera was serving on the editorial staff of "Chess" as games editor.
 

The Menchik Club

In the 1930s Albert Becker said anyone who should lose to Vera Menchik would be a member of the Menchik Club. While Vera stood head and shoulders above any other woman of her day, she was below the strength of the male GMs. Yet, for reasons best understood as psychological, these same men lost to her, much to their embarrassment and regret. They hated to play against her, and their own fear of becoming unwilling members of her club generally led them to defeat. The membership roster was quite impressive: Max Euwe (twice), Sammy Reshevsky, Mir Sultan Khan, Sir George Thomas, C. H. O'D.  Alexander, Edgar Colle, Frederick Yates, William Winter, Lajos Steiner, Frederich Saemisch, Milner-Barry, Harry Golombek, and Jacques Mieses (who lost to her four times in a match).
In 1929, Vera was invited to the Carlsbad International Tournament which included such players as Jose Capablanca, Savielly Tartakover, Aron Nimzowitsch and Max Euwe. She did not have a good result in that tournament, finishing tied for last place with several players. However, she played and beat Max Euwe (twice). Among her best results were a second place finish with Akiba Rubinstein at Ramsgate, one-half point behind Capablanca and ahead of her tutor, Maroczy, and George Koltanowski. She finished second in London in 1932, third in Maribor 1934 and third in Yarmouth in 1935. Vera Menchik established for herself a unique and uncompromising place in the evolution of woman's chess.                                                                   

 

After Menchik's death, FIDE held a 16-player tournament in Moscow during the winter of 1949-50 to fill the vacancy. Soviet women took the top four places. This tournament was won by  Ludmilla Rudenko (USSR, 1904-1986) who held the title from 1949 - 1953. Mrs. Rudenko had a career as an economic planner, but her avocation was chess. Her father taught her to play when she was ten, and she was active in tournaments from 1926 onward. Today, with the demise of the Iron Curtain and Cold War, it is difficult to imagine under what conditions Mrs. Rudenko played. John Graham pointed out in Women in Chess: "In the D. J. Richards book, Soviet Chess, he shows that…after the 1917 [Russian] Revolution …emphasis was placed on the game by the authorities. In a report of the organizing committee of the third All-Union Congress for the Organization of Chess, the authorities suggest that chess be used ‘as a political weapon which must be used in order: (a) to give the working masses, tired after their daily labour, a rational leisure activity, and (b) to exploit the educational significance of chess…in order with its help to give a new impetus to the growth of intellectual culture and to the training of the mind among the labouring masses.’" "Under this influence, chess became an intellectual cause celebre in the Soviet Union. Success in the game was an important demonstration of the success of the Revolution, inside and outside the country. Chess masters became intellectual ambassadors, and it was nationally important that they be perceived as successful. Under this impetus, it was natural that schools were set up to train chess professionals who were given special considerations and every facility to ensure that they be successful in international events. This background was extended not only to men, but also to women. In the new society, women were far closer to being equal to men than they were in the societies of the West." "Grandmaster Nikolai Krogius, on behalf of the Soviet chess federation, wouldn’t allow questions to be asked of their women players regarding their creative strengths, whether they be imaginative or based on technique." Mrs. Rudenko and the other Soviet women players may not have been "allowed" to answer questions from inquisitive reporters; but they nonetheless spoke to the entire world through the quality and strength of their games.     The Women's World Championship has been decided by matches or elimination match tournaments organized by FIDE since 1953. FIDE established separate titles of International Woman Master in 1950 and in 1977 established the title of International Woman Grandmaster. Nona Gaprindashvili became the first woman to earn the title of International Grandmaster.                                                                                                                                                          an older Ludmilla Rudenko             From 1953 till 1962 the title was held by Russians: 1953 - 1956 : Elizavyeta Bykova (USSR, 1913-1989) 1956 - 1958 : Olga Rubtsova (USSR, Born 1909) 1958 - 1962 : Elizavyeta Bykova   Elizavyeta Bykova     Olga Rubtsova From Women in Chess: "In the 1948 match tournament which was to decide the world champion, following Alekhine’s death, Botvinnik needed only a draw to secure the crown. He offered it after moving 14 b4, a final pawn move. Although Max Euwe, his opponent, refused at first, Botvinnik’s firm "Fine, let’s play on then" made him change his mind and he extended his hand to congratulate Botvinnik on winning the tournament. Botvinnik describes what happened – and how Bykova was involved. "‘Draw!’ "The excitement and noise in the hall were indescribable. Play on the other boards ceased for several minutes, while chief arbiter, Milan Vidmar, quieted the spectators. Meanwhile, my friends took me away to celebrate my victory. "It wasn’t until some time later that the film crew noticed that they had failed to ‘epochalize’ the moment in which I played my last move, 14 b4, the move that brought the Soviet Union the title of world champion. Noticing that the wallboard monitor, Jan Estrin, had the same color suit as mine, they pressed him into service, in place of the newly-secured world champion. The newsreel viewers never suspected that the ‘historic move’ b2-b4 was made, not by the champion’s hand, but by the wallboy’s! "Nor does the b-pawn’s story end here. Elizaveta Bykova took it home, as a talisman, in the belief that the pawn would help her to become [women’s] world champion. And so it did!’"

Nona Gaprindashvili   Nona Gaprindashvili's victory in 1962 with a score of 9-2 over Elizaveta Bykova began the era of supremacy by Georgian players. Gaprindashvili held the title for 16 years and became the first woman to earn the title of International Grandmaster. In 1978, the year she lost her title to Maia Chiburdanidze, Gaprindashvili was awarded an unqualified title of Grandmaster - equivalent to a men's GM title - in addition to her WGM title.       Nonna Karakashyan (Avanesova), Nona Gaprindashvili  and Tigran Petrossian (with his son Vartan), Moscow, 1963

Maia Chiburdanidze Maia Chiburdanidze won the title from Nona Gaprindashvili in 1978 and held it for 13 years. This picture from 1984 sows her wearing the laurel wreath of the world champion - which she had just won for the third successive time.

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