{{short description|German chess player (1908–1965)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=November 2024}} {{Infobox chess player |name=Sonja Graf |image= File:SonjaGraf1934.jpg |caption= Graf in 1934 |birthname= Susanna Graf |country= Germany<br>United States |birth_date={{Birth date|1908|12|16}} |birth_place=Munich, Kingdom of Bavaria, German Empire |death_date={{Death date and age|1965|3|6|1908|12|16}} |death_place= New York City, New York, United States |title= Woman International Master (1950) }} '''Susanna''' "'''Sonja'''" '''Graf'''<ref>Her real name was Susanna Graf, according to [https://www.kwabc.org/en/childhood-of-sonja-susanna-graf-the-solutions-to-nearly-all-open-questions.html Ken Whyld Foundation & Association] and [http://www.ara.org.ar/chs/ajedrez/perlas/piriapolise.html Passengers of the Piriápolis]</ref> (December 16, 1908 – March 6, 1965) was a German and American chess player. She was a women's world championship runner-up and a two-time U.S. women's champion. In 2016, she was inducted into the World Chess Hall of Fame.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://worldchesshof.org/hof-inductee/sonja-graf-stevenson|title=Sonja Graf-Stevenson|website=World Chess Hall of Fame|date=23 March 2017 }}</ref>
==Early years== Born in Munich, Susanna Graf was the daughter of Josef Graf and Susanna Zimmermann, both Volga Germans from the Samara region, who had moved to Munich in September 1906.<ref>[https://www.kwabc.org/en/childhood-of-sonja-susanna-graf-the-solutions-to-nearly-all-open-questions.html "Childhood of Sonja (Susanna) Graf - the solutions to (nearly) all open questions"], ''Ken Whyld Association''</ref> Her father was originally a priest in Russia, but moved to Munich to pursue life as a painter. She later wrote that despite the suffering she endured at the hands of her father, she was grateful that he taught her the game of chess when she was still a child.
Chess became her means of escape, both mentally and physically, and she began spending all her time in Munich chess cafés. Her fame as a coffeehouse player grew and she was introduced to and became the protégée of the German master, Siegbert Tarrasch. By age twenty-three, she had beaten Rudolf Spielmann twice in simultaneous competition and turned chess professional. She began traveling throughout Europe, following the chess circuit both for the experience and to distance herself from what she considered the ominous National Socialist movement based, at the time, in Munich.
During the early decades of the 20th century, female chess players were a rarity and Sonja Graf basked in the popularity and attention her sudden fame brought her as much as she exploited the freedom and independence of her new itinerant lifestyle. In 1934, she played against the era's other woman champion, Vera Menchik, in an unofficial match in Amsterdam and, subsequently, in an official 1937 world championship match in Semmering, Austria. She lost both matches (by the scores of 1–3 and 4½–11½),<ref>[http://www.ajedrezdeataque.com/11%20Ajedrez%20Femenino/Palmares/Cto_Mundo.htm "Campeonato del mundo femenino"], ''Ajedezd de ataque'' {{in lang|es}}</ref> but was invited, along with Menchik, to participate in what would normally have been an exclusive male tournament held that year in Prague. She did not win against any of the champions, and her best result was a draw with the Estonian master Paul Keres.
==In Argentina and the United States== In 1939, Sonja Graf traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina to play in the Women's World Chess Championship, held concurrently with the 8th Chess Olympiad. As a result of her outspoken defiance of Hitler's government, she was taken off the list of German participants and played under "Libre" ("free" in Spanish) flag.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Negele|first=Michael|date=2007-02-10|title=Life story of female prodigy Sonja Graf-Stevenson|url=https://www.kwabc.org/en/newsitem/life-story-of-female-prodigy-sonja-graf-stevenson.html|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2021-01-23|website=Ken Whyld Association}}</ref> In September, with the tournament still in progress, Germany invaded Poland, unleashing World War II and causing unprecedented confusion within the competition. Some teams withdrew, others refused to play teams from certain countries. Both Graf and Menchik played the entire tournament. Graf won 16 games and lost 3, finishing second. In her game against Menchik, Graf lost after achieving a winning position, something she always regretted ("against Menchik, when she was world champion, I had a won game, but I found the three stupidest moves you could think of and lost."—''New Yorker'', September 19, 1964). Following the outbreak of the war, Sonja Graf, along with many other participants of the Olympiad,<ref>Miguel Najdorf, Gideon Ståhlberg, Paulino Frydman, Erich Eliskases, Paul Michel, Ludwig Engels, Albert Becker, Heinrich Reinhardt, Jiří Pelikán, Karel Skalička, Markas Luckis, Movsas Feigins, Ilmar Raud, Moshe Czerniak, Meir Rauch, Victor Winz, Aristide Gromer, Franciszek Sulik, Adolf Seitz, Chris de Ronde, Zelman Kleinstein, Paulette Schwartzmann</ref> had decided to remain in the safety of Argentina.<ref>List of players who remained in Argentina in 1939: {{cite web|title=Asilados en 1939|url=http://ar.geocities.com/carloseadrake/AJEDREZ/Asilados_1939.htm|language=es|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090723115733/http://ar.geocities.com/carloseadrake/AJEDREZ/Asilados_1939.htm|archive-date=2009-07-23|url-status=dead}}</ref> She quickly learned the local Spanish language, assimilated herself in the culture and wrote the books, ''Así juega una mujer'' (''This Is How a Woman Plays''), which describes her experiences as a chess player, and ''Yo Soy Susann'' (''I Am Susann''), recounting the physical and psychological abuse she suffered during her childhood. She also met merchant mariner Vernon Stevenson, whom she married in 1947.
The newlyweds moved to Southern California, settling in Hollywood, and Graf started playing under the name '''Sonja Graf-Stevenson'''. She retired from chess to give birth and raise her son Alexander, but subsequently returned to co-win (with Gisela Kahn Gresser) the 1957 U.S. Women's Chess Championship. She and her family moved to New York City's Greenwich Village, where she gave chess lessons at Lisa Lane's ''Queen's Pawn Chess Emporium''. In 1964 she had her second win in the U.S. Women's Championship, but was already suffering from the liver ailment which would take her life the following year. Sonja Graf died in New York City {{frac|2|1|2}} months after her 56th birthday.
==References== <references/>
==External links== *{{chessgames player|id=26427}} *[https://web.archive.org/web/20050308193808/http://batgirl.atspace.com/LisaLaneNewYorker.html Article] from ''The New Yorker'' (September 19, 1964)
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Graf, Sonja}} Category:1908 births Category:1965 deaths Category:Chess Woman International Masters Category:American female chess players Category:20th-century American chess players Category:American chess writers Category:Argentine female chess players Category:Argentine chess players Category:German female chess players Category:German anti-fascists Category:German emigrants to Argentina Category:Argentine emigrants to the United States Category:Chess players from Munich Category:Deaths from liver disease Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers Category:20th-century German chess players Category:Emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:20th-century American women writers Category:20th-century American sportswomen Category:20th-century German sportswomen