Name Maria Ivanka | ||
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Mária Ivánka (Budapest, 23 February 1950) Hungarian chess Woman Grandmaster.
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Ivánka played chess at ten years old for the first time and by the age of eleven won her very first chess tournament, the Championship for elementary school girls of Budapest. At the age of 17, in 1967 she won her first national title, the Hungarian Women Chess Championship. She would go on to win the national title a total of nine times. At the Chess Olympiads between 1969 and 1986 she collected 6 medals. She earned the title of Woman Grandmaster in 1978. In the seventies, during the Soviet-dominant chess era, she ranked as one of the world’s top players. She defeated the reigning world champion, Nona Gaprindashvili twice in international tournaments. Beside her chess carrier, together with her husband and coach András Budinszky, she has raised three children. Her brother was the late actor and director of the Hungarian National Theatre, Csaba Ivánka.