Goryachkina was the challenger in the 2020 Women's World Championship match, which she lost in rapid tiebreaks to Ju Wenjun.

In August 2023, she won the FIDE Women's World Cup after defeating Nurgyul Salimova in a tie break match.

At the age of 13, Goryachkina became the third-youngest Woman Grandmaster (WGM) of all time behind Hou Yifan and Kateryna Lagno.

Aleksandra Goryachkina was born on 28 September 1998 in Orsk, Orenburg Oblast, Russia to Larisa Matvienko and Yuri Goryachkin,[a] both of whom are experienced chess players.

[7] Despite her parents' backgrounds, Goryachkina was initially not interested in chess, instead preferring activities such as dancing and playing table tennis.

[9] At the Polar Chess School, she began working with Vladimir Belov, a Russian Grandmaster (GM).

[14][15] She also won a bronze medal at the under-12 youth level in 2009, finishing 1½ points behind Sarasadat Khademalsharieh after 11 rounds.

[24][25] She then competed in her first European Individual Women's Chess Championship and scored 5½/11, highlighted by a win against Woman Grandmaster (WGM) Olga Girya.

[26] Goryachkina followed this success by coming in joint first at the Czech Open and clear first at the Lyudmila Rudenko Memorial, again gaining about 48 rating points at both events.

[27][28][29] With her performance at the Czech Open, she clinched the Woman International Master (WIM) title and also earned a WGM norm.

[21] Following her 2011 breakthrough year, Goryachkina continued to steadily rise in rating in 2012, reaching 2400 for the first time by January 2013.

[21][30] Two other early year highlights were a victory over GM Davit Petrosian at the 2012 Aeroflot Open B,[31] and a joint second-place finish at the Russian under-20 junior girls' championship.

[32] Late in the year, she won the junior V. Dvorkovich Cup 2012 on a tiebreak over fellow future GMs Yinglun Ju and Grigoriy Oparin before closing the year as both the European and World girls' under-18 champion as well as the Russian Cup for Women winner over Olga Girya.

[23] She earned her third and final IM norm at the 2015 European Individual Championship for the second consecutive year with a better score of 6½/11.

[21][39] Goryachkina made her debut in the Women's World Chess Championship knockout event in 2015, where she was eliminated in the second round by third seed Anna Muzychuk.

[21] After first crossing 2500, Goryachkina fell back into the 2400s in May 2016 and did not reach 2500 again until June 2018, albeit never falling below 2450 over that span of two years.

In particular, she scored 6½/11 at the 2019 European Individual Chess Championship in March, notably recording a win against Rauf Mamedov, who was rated 2701 at the time.

[55] She then made a major breakthrough at the Women's Candidates Tournament, which was being revived in conjunction with the dissolution of the knockout format that had been used for the past two decades.

With the other three tiebreak games ending in draws, Ju won the match and retained the Women's World Champion title.

[78] Following the World Championship match, she again finished in joint first in the third leg at Lausanne in March, this time with Nana Dzagnidze, who won on the tiebreak criteria.

She resumed competition at the Russian Championship Higher League, where she matched her 2018 result with a score of 5½/9 and a performance rating of 2656 to take over the No.

[83][84] Goryachkina then participated in the 2023 Women's Candidates Tournament, having qualified as loser of the previous world Championship match.

In August 2023, Goryachkina won the Women's Chess World Cup finals over Nurgyul Salimova.

She also won a brilliancy award for her seventh-round game with black against Cemil Can Ali Marandi for dangerously sacrificing a rook and a knight on the kingside.

[94] Russia won another gold medal at the European Team Championship later in the year, with Goryachkina again playing on the fourth board.

Nonetheless, Goryachkina won a medal this time, winning the bronze on the second board while playing behind only Kosteniuk.

She is also the highest-rated Russian woman in chess history, ahead of sisters Nadezhda and Tatiana Kosintseva who had peak FIDE ratings of 2576 and 2581 respectively.

Although she has since primarily taught in person, she remains active on the platform in order to improve her English skills.