She holds the titles of International Master (IM) and Woman Grandmaster (WGM), which FIDE awarded her in 2012 and 2010 respectively.

That same year, her parents moved to Tbilisi, Georgia, where she grew up with dual citizenship – Georgian and Russian.

[citation needed] Paikidze has said: "Every family in Georgia owns a chess set and knows how to play.

"[4] In 1999, at the age of 6, Paikidze began working with her first professional chess coach and improved quickly.

She also won two bronze medals at the U-20 World Junior Girls Chess Championship, in Gaziantep 2008 and Madras 2011.

Paikidze competed in a small number of international chess events in the United States after moving to Baltimore, Maryland.

Paikidze made her debut in the U.S. Women's Chess Championship, finishing second with a score of 7½/11 points.

Later that year, she won the Boardwalk Open in Galloway, New Jersey, edging out on tiebreak Sergey Kudrin and Igor Sorkin, after all finished on 4/5.

Her online petition asking for the championship to be moved or the hijab laws to be relaxed has received over 15,000 signatures.

She married American engineer Greg Barnes and resides in the area of Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.[25] Paikidze studied at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), which has a chess program that has won a record number of times both the Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship and the President's Cup.