An American Champion, Gisela Kahn Gresser

Gisela K. Gresser, the first woman in the United States to achieve a master's rating (she was also awarded an International Woman Master title in 1950), was U.S. Women's Chess Champion nine times: 1944-46, 1948-51 (with Mona M. Karff), 1955-57 (with Nancy Roos), 1957-59 (with Sonja Graf Stevenson), 1962-64, 1965, 1966 (with Lisa Lane), 1967, and her final championship was won in 1969 at the age of 63. Gresser represented the United States in several international events. She played in five Women's Candidates tournaments and three Women's Chess Olympiads. She was Women's World Chess Championship Challenger in 1949-50, and also won a U.S. Women's Open Championship in 1954. Gresser died in 2000, at the age of 94. Batgirl has posted an article from Chess Review about the first U.S. Women's Chess Chamionship, held in 1940, in which Gresser participated. It's very enlightening reading. A few games of Gresser: Gresser v. Lisa Lane (1961): http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesslike.pl?gid=1293369 Gresser v. Josza Langos (1950): http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesslike.pl?gid=1241543 Ted Dunst v. Gresser (1950) (scroll down for annotated game): http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kibitz25.txt Gresser v. Valentina Belova (Women's World Chess Championship, 1950, Moscow): http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~goeller/urusov/gambit/games/gresser-belova.htm