Monika Soćko (née Bobrowska; born 24 March 1978) is a Polish

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 ...

player who holds the FIDE titles of Grandmaster (GM) and Woman Grandmaster (WGM). She won the Polish women's chess championship eight times (in 1995, 2004, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017).

Career

In 2007, Soćko won an international women's tournament in

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ahead of former Women's World Champion Antoaneta Stefanova. In 2008, she was awarded the title of Grandmaster (GM) by

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( , ), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national chess federations and acts as the Spor ...

, becoming the first and, to date, only Polish female player to achieve this. The following year, she won the Arctic Chess Challenge in

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, Norway in spite of being only ranked as number 16 before the tournament, while her top-ranked

husband A husband is a man involved in a marital relationship, commonly referred to as a spouse. The specific rights, responsibilities, and societal status attributed to a husband can vary significantly across different cultures and historical perio ...

, Bartosz Soćko, finished in 13th place. In March 2010, she won the bronze medal at the Women's European Individual Chess Championship edging out Yelena Dembo and Marie Sebag on tie-breaks. In 2014 Soćko won the

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Woman Grandmaster

round-robin tournament A round-robin tournament or all-play-all tournament is a competition format in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn.''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1971, G. & ...

. In 2017 she won the 8th Sharjah Cup for Women 2017 in

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edging out Ukrainian player Svetlana Moskalets on tiebreak score, after both players scored 7½/9 points. In August 2022 in

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Soćko won gold medal in European Women's Individual Chess Championship. As a member of the Polish team, she won the gold medal at the Women's European Team Chess Championship in 2005, silver in 2007 and 2011, and bronze in 2013 and in the 2002 Women's Chess Olympiad. In May 2024, in

Rzeszów Rzeszów ( , ) is the largest city in southeastern Poland. It is located on both sides of the Wisłok River in the heartland of the Sandomierz Basin. Rzeszów is the capital of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship and the county seat, seat of Rzeszów C ...

she won bronze medal in Polish Women's Chess Championship.

Rules appeal in 2008

In the 2008 Women's World Championship she was involved in a game which resulted in a dispute about the interpretation of the

rules of chess. In an armageddon game she needed a win to advance to the next round. The position got down to each player having only a

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and a

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in which a

checkmate Checkmate (often shortened to mate) is any game position in chess and other chess-like games in which a player's king is in check (threatened with ) and there is no possible escape. Checkmating the opponent wins the game. In chess, the king is ...

position is possible but cannot be forced. Her opponent,

Sabina-Francesca Foisor Sabina-Francesca Foişor (born August 30, 1989) is a Romanian American chess player holding the title of Woman Grandmaster (WGM). She competed in the Women's World Chess Championship in 2008 and 2017. Foisor won the US women's championship in ...

, ran out of time under the

time control A time control is a mechanism in the tournament play of almost all two-player board games so that each round of the match can finish in a timely way and the tournament can proceed. For turn-based games such as chess, shogi or go, time cont ...

. Since checkmate cannot be forced with this

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, the arbiter initially ruled that the game was a draw, therefore her opponent advanced to the next round. Soćko appealed, pointing out that the rules state that what matters is not whether or not checkmate can be ''forced'', but rather it is ''possible'' (see Rules of chess#Timing). The arbiter compared the possible checkmate position to a helpmate, in which the defender has to cooperate in order to get to the checkmate. Soćko won the appeal and advanced to the next round.

References

External links

* * * * 1978 births Living people Polish female chess players Polish chess players Chess Grandmasters Female chess grandmasters Chess players from Warsaw Chess Olympiad competitors {{Poland-chess-bio-stub European Chess Champions