Women represent a small minority of chess players at all ages and levels. Female chess players today generally compete in a mix of open tournaments and women's tournaments, the latter of which are most prominent at or near the top level of women's chess and at youth levels. Modern top-level women's tournaments help provide a means for some participants to be full-time professional chess players. The majority of these tournaments are organized by the International Chess Federation (FIDE) and revolve around the World Championship cycle, which culminates in a match to decide the Women's World Chess Champion. Beyond those events, among the most prominent women's tournaments are women's and girls' national and continental championships.
Women were generally not permitted to join chess clubs until the early 1900s. Once allowed in, they were largely limited to competing against other women. Around this time, Vera Menchik became the inaugural Women's World Chess Champion and was the first woman to compete in top-level tournaments with the best players in the world in the late 1920s. After her death, the Soviet Union dominated women's chess, winning every Women's Chess Olympiad they played from its inception in 1957 through 1986. Soviet players Nona Gaprindashvili and Maia Chiburdanidze from Georgia became the first two women to earn the Grandmaster (GM) title, and were the next two women after Menchik to compete in high-level open tournaments.
The Polgar sisters ended Soviet domination of women's chess as Susan Polgar became No. 1 in the world among women in 1984 and all three led Hungary to a gold medal at the 1988 Olympiad. Judit Polgar established herself as the strongest women's chess player of all time, reaching No. 8 in the world overall. The turn of the century saw a substantial increase in the number of women to earn the GM title. Among these new GMs, Hou Yifan has been the only other woman to reach the overall top 100 and regularly compete in high-level open tournaments. Since the 1990s, China has dominated the Women's World Championship with six different champions, including the reigning champion Ju Wenjun.
The low number of women to reach the top level of chess has created a lot of interest as to why women historically have not had more success. There is no evidence that women are innately disadvantaged at chess. It has been demonstrated statistically that the low numbers across all levels can largely account for the lack of women at or near the top. The general paucity of women in chess has contributed to women commonly being the subject of sexism, harassment, and sexual harassment, factors also thought to contribute to women achieving less or leaving chess early. Beyond playing chess, women also take on other roles such as being a coach or an arbiter. Two chess professions with a smaller participation gap are commentators and live streamers.
Competition formats General structure With respect to gender, chess tournaments can be classified as either open or women's tournaments. Women can choose to compete in either open or women's tournaments. In practice, most if not all female players play a mix of both. The fraction of participants who are women can vary considerably depending on the type of tournament. Independently organized tournaments tend to feature higher percentages of female chess players than championship tournaments organized by federations. Many smaller tournaments across a wide range of levels do not have any female participants.
One of the most common types of chess tournaments are Swiss open tournaments, which both men and women can enter as they generally allow a large if not unlimited number of participants. On some occasions, these tournaments are split into multiple sections by rating. Swiss tournaments tend to not have a women-only section, although it is possible that one of the rating sections may be restricted to women. Instead of having a separate women-only section, many professional and semi-professional Swiss tournaments have women's prizes reserved for the highest-finishing women in the open sections.
Another common type of tournament are closed round-robin tournaments, which tend to have around ten players. These tournaments are very popular at highest level of chess, and include events such as the Sinquefield Cup. Although there are no formal restrictions by gender, many such elite tournaments tend to only have male players because the event is invite-only and only high-rated players receive invitations. Judit Polgár and Hou Yifan are generally considered the only players to regularly play in these elite highest-level tournaments this century. Female chess players have corresponding elite women-only round-robin events such as the Cairns Cup. There are a limited number of elite women-only round-robin classical tournaments.
Championship tournaments Tournaments can either be independent or some sort of championship tournament organized by FIDE, continental federations, or national federations. These championship tournaments organized by federations often have an open section and a women's section, and they are often held concurrently, such as with the Chess Olympiad and the Women's Chess Olympiad. Because the sections are held together and the top female players have a better chance to medal or win prizes in the women's section, few women participate in the open section. Likewise, nearly all national federations host a national championship and a women's national championship, as well as similar competitions across a wide range of youth levels. Albeit also uncommon, it can be more common for women or girls to participate in the open sections of these events, and more so at youth levels. Some female players have won their country's overall national championship, including grandmasters and international masters such as Judit Polgár, Nino Khurtsidze, Viktorija Čmilytė, Keti Arakhamia-Grant, and Eva Moser.
FIDE began hosting a Women's World Chess Championship in 1927 even before they controlled the overall World Chess Championship. The inaugural edition was won by Vera Menchik. The reigning Women's World Chess Champion is Ju Wenjun, who has won the title four times in a row from 2018 through 2023. The most recent format for the Women's World Championship is a match between the reigning champion and a challenger who earns the right to challenge by winning the Women's Candidates. The Candidates and the rest of the World Championship cycle are analogous to how the overall World Chess Champion is determined.
Achievements
Rating Judit Polgár is widely acknowledged as the greatest and strongest female chess player of all-time, and Hou Yifan is widely acknowledged as the next-strongest. In total, three women have been ranked in the top 100 overall: Judit Polgár with a peak ranking of world No. 8, Maia Chiburdanidze with a peak ranking of world No. 43, and Hou Yifan with a peak ranking of world No. 55. Other women who have been ranked in the top 200 include Susan Polgar, Pia Cramling, Xie Jun, Alisa Galliamova, Humpy Koneru, and Anna Muzychuk. For players who were active before official ratings began, the retrospective rating site Chessmetrics also considered Vera Menchik to have been among the top 100 players in the world for several years, informally estimating her peak ranking at No. 52 in the world.
Judit Polgár is also the only woman who has been rated above 2700 – informally called the "super GM" level – with a peak rating of 2735, a wide margin ahead of anyone else. Hou Yifan has the next-highest peak rating at 2686, also by a wide margin ahead of the next-highest rated player, Humpy Koneru. In total, six women have been rated above 2600, the other three being Aleksandra Goryachkina, Anna Muzychuk, and Ju Wenjun.
Titles
There are 42 women who have earned the Grandmaster (GM) title, and an additional 148 who have the International Master (IM) title (including seven who are deceased) as of May 2025. China has produced the most GMs with 10. Russia, Georgia, and Ukraine have also had at least 5 GM women. The other countries that have had multiple women with the GM title are India, Hungary, the United States, and the former Soviet Union. There are more than 300 women whose highest title is the Woman Grandmaster (WGM) title. In total, around 500 women have the WGM title, including those who also have either the GM or IM titles. There are around 900 women with the Woman International Master (WIM) title.
Tournament performances
Many of the best tournament results by women in the highest-level tournaments were achieved by Judit Polgár and Hou Yifan. Judit Polgár came in clear second in the 2003 edition of the Tata Steel 14-player round-robin super-tournament (then known as the Corus chess tournament), which featured seven of the world's top ten players and is generally regarded as the "Wimbledon of Chess". Hou Yifan shared first place and was runner-up after a play-off in the 2012 edition of the Gibraltar Masters, a high-level Swiss tournament in which she defeated four of the eleven players in the field rated at least 2700, including Judit Polgár.
The best tournament performances in classical tournaments include Judit Polgár sharing first place with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in the 2006 Hoogeveen Crown Group, a four-player double round-robin, with a 2930 tournament performance rating (TPR). Hou Yifan had a 2872 TPR with her shared-first in the Swiss-format Gibraltar in 2012. When Judit's older sister Sofia Polgar won the 1989 Magistrale di Roma with a near-perfect score of 8½/9, she had a 2926 TPR against her rated opposition, which included five GMs. In ten-player round-robin super-tournaments, Judit Polgár had a 2845 TPR when she won the 1994 Madrid Torneo Magistral, and a 2790 TPR when she won the 2000 Japfa Classic in Bali. More recently, Hou Yifan won the 2017 Biel GMT ten-player super-tournament, which featured three players rated over 2700, with a 2810 TPR.
In rapid, Valentina Gunina won the 2016 London Rapid Superplay, a large Swiss with 43 GMs and 475 players total, with a 2870 TPR. In a much smaller rapid event, Judit Polgár won the UNAM Quadrangular four-player knockout, in which she knocked out Vasyl Ivanchuk in the semi-final and Topalov in the final, amounting to a TPR of 2968.
Notable games
Judit Polgár's most brilliant games include her victory over world No. 2 Alexei Shirov in 1994 in Buenos Aires and her victory over world No. 2 Viswanathan Anand in 1999 in Dos Hermanas. The game against Shirov took place in a tournament in honour of Lev Polugaevsky where players were required to play the Sicilian defence.
The most landmark win by opponent is generally considered to be Judit Polgár's victory over world No. 1 Garry Kasparov in the Russia vs. the Rest of the World rapid match in 2002. The win marked the first time a woman defeated the current world No. 1 player, and it received worldwide attention in the mainstream media. It drew particular attention because of Kasparov's past comments denouncing women's abilities to play chess, and was seen as proof that women were capable of beating even the best player in the world. Polgár's highest-rated wins in classical include two victories over world No. 1 Veselin Topalov, rated 2813, in the 2006 Hoogeveen Crown Group, where she shared first place. Hou Yifan defeated world No. 3 Fabiano Caruana, who was rated 2817, in the 2018 Grenke Chess Classic.
Coaching