Anja Hegeler (née Dahlgrün, married Ehrke; 7 November 1965 – 24 December 2022) was a German

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

Woman International Master FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...

(WIM, 1988), West Germany Women's Chess Championship silver medalist (1987).

Chess career

Anja twice won the West Germany Girl's Chess Championship. In 1983 in Hanau she was first ahead of

Bettina Trabert Bettina Trabert (born 4 March 1969) is a German chess player who holds the FIDE title of Woman Grandmaster (WGM, 2000). Biography Trabert started playing chess at the age of eight. In 1983, at the age of fourteen, she won second place in the Ge ...

. In 1984 in Odenthal-Eikamp she won the West Germany Girl's Chess Championship for the second time. In 1984 in Bad Aibling she took part in a West Germany Women's Chess Championship for the first time and finished sixth. At the West Germany Women's Blitz Chess Championship in 1986 in Hameln, she was third behind Gisela Fischdick and Isabel Hund. In 1987 in Bad Lauterberg she took second place in the West Germany Women's Chess Championship. In 1999 in Essen she came third at the West Germany Women's Blitz Chess Championship behind Gisela Fischdick and Jessica Nill. In 2002 in Barnstorf at the West Germany Women's Rapid Chess Championship, she came third behind Gisela Fischdick and

Vera Jürgens Vera Jürgens ( Peicheva, born 5 September 1969), also known as Vera Peicheva-Jürgens, is a Bulgarian and German female chess player. She earned the FIDE title of Woman Grandmaster (WGM) in 1993 and won the Bulgarian Women's Chess Championship ...

. She reached 12th place in the

European Junior Chess Championship The first chess youth championship in Europe was the yearly European Junior Championship for under age 20. It was played from 1971–2002. FIDE officially introduced the European Junior Championship in 1970 at their Annual Congress and so the 19 ...

in U20 age group in 1984. At the FIDE Women's World Chess Championship Zonal tournament in Bad Lauterberg in 1985, she took fourth place behind Helene Mira. She also qualified for the zone tournament in

Erlangen Erlangen (; , ) is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 119,810 inhabitants (as of 30 September 2024), it is the smalle ...

1987. At the 28th Chess Olympiad in 1988 in

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

she played for the West Germany Women's Team; there she reached 6 points from 11 games. Her greatest achievement was 3rd place with 7.5 points from 11 games at the FIDE Women's World Chess Championship Zonal tournament in

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

in 1989. Anja Hegeler held the title

(WIM). She was a member of the ''Hamburger SK 1830'' and played with them from 1991 to 1995 and again since 1997 in the Women's Chess Bundesliga. Her father Harro Dahlgrün (1918–1995) was a founding member of the

rugby Rugby may refer to: Sport * Rugby football in many forms: ** Rugby union: 15 players per side *** American flag rugby *** Beach rugby *** Mini rugby *** Rugby sevens, 7 players per side *** Rugby tens, 10 players per side *** Snow rugby *** Tou ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

and chess departments of

Hamburger SV Hamburger Sport-Verein e.V. (), commonly known as Hamburger SV () or Hamburg (), or HSV (), is a German sports club based in Hamburg, with its largest branch being its Association football, football department. Though the current HSV was founde ...

and from 1971 its honorary member,Obituary on Harro Dahlgrün in HSK-Aktuell 2/1995, S. 4ff. longtime managing director of the Hamburger Sportbund''Hamburger Abendblatt'' 2 December 1983, page 32 and wrote a four-volume work on the

King's Gambit The King's Gambit is a chess opening that begins with the moves: :1. e4 e5 :2. f4 White offers a pawn to divert the black e-pawn. If Black accepts the gambit, White may play d4 and Bxf4, regaining the gambit pawn with domination, or direc ...

. Anja Hegeler died on Christmas Eve 2022 after a long and serious illness.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hegeler, Anja 1965 births 2022 deaths Chess players from Hamburg Chess Woman International Masters German female chess players German chess players 20th-century German sportswomen