Chess Gagunashvili

WIM Marija Stojanovic-Gagunashvili was born in Belgrade and started learning chess from her father at the age of 4. She has participated in tournaments since the age of 8 and has repeatedly won the Yugoslav championship in the age categories. At the European Chess Championship, she won bronze medals in individual and team under-18 competitions. She has participated in many domestic and international tournaments. She won the WIM title at the 2014 Olympics, where she played for the Montenegro team.

She has had the title of International arbiter since 2010 and has arbitered at many European children’s and adult championships, European clubs CUP, and world championships for children, as well as many domestic and international tournaments.

She graduated with a degree in economics in Belgrade and founded the chess club “Stojanovic Sisters” together with her sister Kosara. The two designed and ran projects “Children in Chess” – working as chess coaches with hearing impaired children and children with learning disabilities in 2011, and “Chess in kindergarten”- working as chess coaches in Belgrade kindergartens with children aged 4 to 6.5 years from 2011. She worked as a journalist in the daily newspaper Politika writing a chess column and as the host of the chess show “Chess +”.

She has been coaching since 2004 and she won first place in the Junior League of Belgrade as head coach with children from her “Stojanovic Sisters” chess school. She has coached children individually and her students won medals at the championships of Serbia, Montenegro, and the State of Tamil Nadu.

She has the FIDE Instructor title which she was awarded at a seminar held in 2014.

She teaches classes in English, Spanish and Serbian.