Irina Borisivna Krush ( uk, Ірина Борисівна Круш; born December 24, 1983) is an American

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

Grandmaster. She is the first woman, and as of August 2022 the only woman, to earn the GM title while playing for the United States. Krush is an eight-time U.S. Women's Champion.

Early life

Irina Krush was born in

Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

(now

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

). She learned to play chess at age five, emigrating with her parents to

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

that same year (1989).

Chess career

At age 14, Krush won the 1998 U.S. Women's Chess Championship to become the youngest U.S. women's champion ever. She has won the championship on seven other occasions, in 2007, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2020. In 1999, Krush took part in the "

Kasparov versus the World Kasparov versus the World was a game of chess played in 1999 over the Internet. It was a , in which a World Team of thousands decided each move for the black pieces by plurality vote, while Garry Kasparov conducted the white pieces by himself. Mo ...

" chess competition.

Garry Kasparov Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator. His peak rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by ...

played the white pieces and the Internet public, via a

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

host website, voted on moves for the black pieces, guided by the recommendations of Krush and three of her contemporaries,

Étienne Bacrot Étienne Bacrot (; born 22 January 1983) is a French chess grandmaster, and as a child, a chess prodigy. He competed at the Candidates Matches in 2007 and won the Aeroflot Open in 2009. He passed 2700 FIDE rating in 2004 and in January 2005 ...

Elisabeth Pähtz Elisabeth Pähtz (born January 8, 1985, sometimes spelt Elisabeth Paehtz) is a German chess Grandmaster.Florin Felecan Florin Felecan (born 7 April 1981, in Brasov) is a chess International Master. Born in Romania, he resides in Skokie, Illinois, having moved there on July 17, 1997, along with his family. Chess career Felecan is a multiple-time former junior nat ...

. On the tenth move, Krush suggested a , for which the World team voted. Kasparov said later that he lost control of the game at that point, and wasn't sure whether he was winning or losing. Krush played in the Group C of the 2008

Corus Chess Tournament The Tata Steel Chess Tournament is an annual chess tournament held in January in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands. It was called the Hoogovens Tournament from its creation in 1938 until the sponsor Koninklijke Hoogovens merged with British Steel ...

, a 14-player

round-robin tournament A round-robin tournament (or all-go-away-tournament) is a competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero ...

held in

Wijk aan Zee Wijk aan Zee ( literally ''Neighborhood at Sea'') is a village on the coast of the North Sea in the municipality of Beverwijk, the province of North Holland of the Netherlands. The prestigious Tata Steel Chess Tournament (formerly called the Coru ...

, the Netherlands. She finished in joint fifth place having scored 7/13 points after five wins (including the one against the eventual winner,

Fabiano Caruana Fabiano Luigi Caruana (born July 30, 1992) is an American chess grandmaster. A chess prodigy, Caruana became a grandmaster at the age of 14 years, 11 months, and 20 days—the youngest grandmaster in the history of both Italy and the United Sta ...

), four draws and four losses. In 2013, she was awarded the Grandmaster title due to her results at the

NYC New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Mayor's Cup International GM Tournament in 2001, Women's

World Team Chess Championship The World Team Chess Championship is an international team chess event, eligible for the participation of 10 countries whose chess federations dominate their continent. It is played every two years. In chess, this tournament and the Chess Olympiads ...

2013 and

Baku Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...

Open 2013. In 2022, she won the 2022 American Cup (Women's field) in a double-elimination format. She tied with

Jennifer Wu Yue "Jennifer" Wu (born January 4, 1990) is a Chinese American table tennis player originally from China who has been named to the U.S. team at the 2016 Summer Olympics. She was a gold medalist in women's team and women's singles at the 2015 Pan ...

in the 2022 U.S. Women's Chess Championship but lost the playoff.

Team competitions

Krush has played on the U.S. national team in the

Women's Chess Olympiad The Women's Chess Olympiad is an event held by FIDE (the International Chess Federation) since 1957 (every two years since 1972), where national women's teams compete at chess for gold, silver and bronze medals. Since 1976 the Women's Chess Olympia ...

since 1998. The U.S. team won the silver medal in 2004 and bronze in 2008. She also competed as part of the US team in the Women's

in 2009 and 2013. She played for the team Manhattan Applesauce in the

U.S. Chess League The United States Chess League (USCL) was the only nationwide chess league in the United States for eleven years. In 2016 the League announced it would be opened to cities from around the world, moved to the website chess.com, and renamed the Pro ...

in 2015; she previously played for the New York Knights (2005–2011, 2013). Krush and her ex-husband, Canadian Grandmaster

Pascal Charbonneau Pascal Charbonneau (born May 6, 1983, in Montreal) is a Canadian Grandmaster of chess, and a financial analyst. He has won two Closed Canadian Chess Championships, in 2002 and 2004, and has represented Canada in five Chess Olympiads: 2000, 200 ...

, have played in the United Kingdom league for Guildford-ADC. In May 2020, Krush played for the USA team in the

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...

Online Nations Cup.

Writing

Krush frequently contributes articles to ''

Chess Life The monthly ''Chess Life'' and bi-monthly ''Chess Life Kids'' (formerly ''School Mates'' and ''Chess Life for Kids'') are the official magazines published by the United States Chess Federation (US Chess). ''Chess Life'' is advertised as the "most ...

'' magazine and ''uschess.org.'' Her article on earning her grandmaster title in 2013 was honored as the "Best of US Chess" that year.

Personal life

Krush attended Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn. She graduated in International Relations from the

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

in 2006. In March 2016,

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...

was a guest on the ''

Steve Harvey Broderick Stephen Harvey Sr. Also aired August 16, 2015. (born January 17, 1957) is an American television host, producer, actor, and comedian. He hosts ''The Steve Harvey Morning Show'', ''Family Feud'', '' Celebrity Family Feud,'' the Miss U ...

'' television show. On the show, Krush appeared along with two actresses trying to impersonate Krush. The trio answered questions from host

and Clinton regarding her life and chess career. Clinton successfully identified the real Irina Krush. In March 2020, she was hospitalized and treated for a "moderate"

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

infection, then released to recover under quarantine at home. While quarantined, she played in the Isolated Queens Swiss, an online women's

blitz chess Fast chess, also known as Speed chess, is a type of chess in which each player is given less time to consider their moves than normal tournament time controls allow. Fast chess is subdivided, by decreasing time controls, into rapid chess, blitz ...

tournament. She scored 7.5/10 in the tournament, putting her in joint second place, a half point behind tournament winner GM

Alexandra Kosteniuk Alexandra Konstantinovna Kosteniuk (russian: Алекса́ндра Константи́новна Костеню́к; born 23 April 1984) is a Russian chess grandmaster who is the former Women's World Rapid Chess Champion in 2021, and the for ...

Notes

References

External links

* * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Krush, Irina 1983 births Living people American female chess players Chess grandmasters Female chess grandmasters Chess woman grandmasters Chess Olympiad competitors Sportspeople from Odesa Edward R. Murrow High School alumni New York University alumni Soviet emigrants to the United States 21st-century American women