Anna-Maja Kazarian

Kazarian won the inaugural Dutch Women's Internet Chess Championship in 2020, defeating Machteld van Foreest in the knockout final.

She earned her first Woman Grandmaster (WGM) norm in the 2023–24 Dutch League with a career-best performance rating of 2410.

Before leaving Georgia, her family sought out lessons from a local player Revaz Topuria, who recognized her talent for the game.

[5] She has called Maaike Keetman, who has since become a Woman FIDE Master (WFM),[6] her biggest rival in these youth competitions.

[13] She reached a rating of 1700 for the first time at 11 years old with a good performance in the under-20 girls' division at the 2011 Dutch Youth Chess Championships.

[9][14] She built on that success later in the year in the under-12 division of the European Youth Chess Championships in Albena, finishing in joint fifth place with 6½/9.

[15] To start 2012, Kazarian crossed a rating of 1800 after finishing in third place in the ten-player 3L group at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament.

At the European Youth Chess Championships in Prague, she improved on her success from the previous year by winning the silver medal in the under-12 division.

[2] Kazarian also finished in the top ten in the same division of the World Youth Chess Championship at the end of the year.

[27] In May, Kazarian won the under-20 girls' youth national championship with a perfect score of 9/9, helping her to return to a rating of 2100.

[35][36] After a win in the year-round Dutch Team Competition league the following month, Kazarian became a FIDE Master (FM) by virtue of her unpublished rating crossing the 2300 threshold needed to qualify for the title.

She did not reach a published rating of 2300 until the following year, however, as a result of losing a six-game match against Sopiko Guramishvili, a higher-rated Georgian WGM, in a lopsided manner ½–5½.

[40][41] Nonetheless, she had a strong finish to the year highlighted by achieving her third and final WIM norm at the 2016 Baku Olympiad.

[13] At the Dutch Women's Chess Championship in 2017, she defeated Peng Zhaoqin in the last round, her first victory against a Grandmaster (GM).

[45] Nonetheless, she fell to a rating of 2096 by December 2019 primarily due to her performances at the Kragero Resort Chess Title in Norway and the Dutch Open that year.

[13] Nonetheless, during the pandemic, Kazarian entered the first Dutch Women's Internet Chess Championship in November 2020, which was played in a blitz time control of 3+3.

Despite being the lowest-rated player in the field, Kazarian won the tournament, which featured several former Dutch women's champions including Peng Zhaoqin and Anne Haast.

[49][50] At the World Blitz Chess Championship 2023 Kazarian was fined 100 Euro and given a yellow card for wearing shoes that were deemed incompatible with FIDE's dress code.

[54] During the Sharjah Challengers the following month, Kazarian defeated Abdelrahman Hesham, a GM rated 2391, which was her second-ever victory against a Grandmaster.

[36][57][58] On July 20, 2024, she was confirmed as a member of the Dutch women team for the 45th Chess Olympiad hosted in Budapest.

[59] Kazarian has also represented the Netherlands at two European Team Chess Championships, playing on the reserve board in both instances.

With a performance rating of 2324, she also earned her second WIM norm and won the bronze medal on the reserve board behind Polish WGM Joanna Majdan-Gajewska and Italian WFM Alessia Santeramo.

[36][60][61][62] In 2017 in Crete, Kazarian had less opportunity to play as the four boards were covered by Peng, Haast, Lanchava, and Iozefina Păuleţ.

Kazarian in 2019
Kazarian streaming in 2020