Irina Levitina

Irina Solomonovna Levi Tina (Russian Ирина Соломоновна Левитина / Irina Solomonovna Lewitina; born June 8, 1954 in Leningrad, USSR) is an American chess and bridge player of Russian origin, and both Chess and Bridge Grand Master.

Life

Irina comes from a family of intellectuals. Her father taught at the Military Academy, her mother worked as a research assistant. At the age of ten she came to the chess section of the Leningrad Pioneer Palace. My first coach was Vasily Bywschew, later she was supported by Semyon Furman, and Pavel Kondratyev.

Irina Levi Tina won the championship of the Soviet Union four times: 1971, 1978 ( shared with Lydyja Semenova ), 1979 and 1980 / 81st She was not allowed at the 1979 interzonal tournament in Rio de Janeiro ( World Cup qualifiers of women) participate. Reason was her brother, who immigrated to Israel. It belonged in the 1970/80er years to the world's best.

Due to its international success in 1976, she received the title of Grand Master of the women.

After immigrating to the United States, she won three times (1991, 1992 and 1993), the Championship of the United States.

Irina Levi Tina from New Jersey, the only person who both Olympic chess sport three gold medals, as well as in sports Bridge several times Olympic champion and world champion was.

Candidates Tournaments

In 1973, she scored Interzonal in Menorca a split second to fifth place. In the semi-finals 1974 in Kislovodsk she beat Valentina Kozlovskaja. The final 1975 in Moscow, she lost against Nana Alexandria. In 1977, she was defeated in the quarterfinals Alla Kushnir in Dortmund. After a second place in the Interzonal in 1982 in Tbilisi, she won against Nona Gaprindashvili the quarter-finals in Lviv and against Nana Alexandria the semifinals in Dubna. In the final she beat in 1984 in Sochi Lydyja Semenova and got the chance to be world champion.

The title fight they then lost against Maia Tschiburdanidse 1984 in Volgograd.

In the 1986 Candidates Tournament in Malmo she finished in seventh place. First was Elena Akhmilovskaya. A split second to fourth place followed in 1987 Interzonal in Smederevska Palanka. In 1988 she reached a split 3 / 4 Place in the Candidates Tournament in Chaltubo. This was followed by the Interzonal in 1991 in Subotica ( place 3 to 4) and the Candidates Tournament 1992 ( 6th place) in Shanghai, which won Zsuzsa Polgár.

Chess Olympiads

She won four medals at Chess Olympiads: three gold medals (1972, 1974 and 1984 in Thessaloniki ) and one silver medal at the 1988 Chess Olympiad in Thessaloniki again, in each case for the USSR playing. For the U.S., she played the Chess Olympiad in 1992 in Manila.

Chess tournaments

During her chess career won many international tournaments, such as Leningrad (1972 and 1988), Timisoara (1973 ), Belgrade (1977 ), Moscow (1979 ), Naleczów (1984 ), Warsaw ( 1986) and Sochi (1988). Since 1997, they no longer appear in ELO evaluated tournaments.

Bridge

1986 Irina Levi Tina received the Alpwater Award for the year bestgespielte hand of a woman. She was the first Soviet citizen who won this prize. Irina Lewitina is a professional bridge player for many years. It was five times world champion and won many national titles. She won in 1996 and 2000 gold medals at the Olympic Games the sport Bridge, also it was in 2002 and 2006 Team World Champion at the World Championship for couples.

In early 2010 she is number 4 of the women's world ranking of World Bridge Federation ( WBF ) and also # 4 on the Women's Bridge Grand Master, Sabine Auken from Germany ranks second

Bridge Tournaments

As a professional player they took in 1993 at many bridge tournaments, such as: Venice Cup, World Women Team Olympiad, World Women's Pairs, North American Bridge Championships, Women's Swiss Teams, Women's Board -a -Match Teams, Women's Knockout Teams, United States Bridge Championships, McConnell Cup, North American Swiss Teams, Women's Swiss Teams, Women's knockout Teams and Women 's Team Trials.