Chess Career
Pogonina learned to play chess at the age of five, as her grandfather taught her the basics of the game. She has been studying chess since 1993 after winning the school’s checkers tournament.
She achieved notice for the first time in 1998 when she won the Russian Girls under-14 National Championship. Natalia Pogonina has won the European Chess Championships among girls thrice, and has also been awarded a bronze medal at the World Junior Chess Championship. Some of her other victories include winning the Bykova Memorial in 2005, Rudenko Memorial in 2007, bronze medal at North Urals Cup chess super tournament and sharing first place at the World Student Chess Championship in 2008.
Her latest successes have been winning the gold medal in team blitz and bronze medal in team rapid chess at the first World Mind Sport Games in Beijing and scoring 6/7 on Board 5 (Russian team) in the Chess Olympiad in 2008. She finished first (with 8 points from 9 games) at the prestigious Moscow Open 2009, and won the bronze medal at the European Women Championship 2009 (on tie-breaks). In 2011 Natalia Pogonina won gold medals at both the European Club Cup and the European Team Chess Championship, as well as got silver at the Women's World Chess Team Championship. In August 2012 Natalia won the Russian Women's Chess Championship with a score +4 =5 -0.
In 2004, Natalia Pogonina was awarded the title of Woman Grandmaster. She is fifteenth on the July 2010 FIDE women Elo rating list with a rating of 2501.
In 2012 she was no. 5 player (reserve) and played eight of the eleven rounds for the Russian women's team, which won the gold medal at the 40th Chess Olympiad in Istanbul. She scored +6=1-1 and won the gold medal for her individual performance on board 5.
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