Gisela Kahn Gresser (February 8, 1906 – December 4, 2000) was an American chess player. She dominated women's chess in the United States, winning the U.S. Women's Chess Championship nine times from 1944 to 1969.
Chess career
Gresser learned chess at a very late age. On a cruise from France to New York in the late 1930s, she borrowed a chess manual from a fellow passenger and taught herself how to play. By the end of the cruise, she was hooked. In 1938, she was a spectator at the first U.S. Women's Chess Championship tournament, organized by Caroline Marshall (wife of US Champion Frank Marshall) and held at the Rockefeller Center in New York City (won by Adele Rivero). She first played in the championship in 1940, and in 1944 she won it with a perfect score.
In addition to her repeated successes in the U.S. Women's Chess Championship, Gresser also played in the Women's World Chess Championship tournament of 1949–50, and subsequently in six Women's World Championship cycles: five Candidates' tournaments (1955, 1959, 1961, 1964, and 1967) and one Interzonal tournament (1971). She played for the U.S. team in three Women's Chess Olympiads (1957, 1963, and 1966). In April 1963, she became the first woman in the United States to gain a master title, with a rating of 2211.
She also wrote an article for the October 1950 issue of Ladies Home Journal, entitled "I Went to Moscow". Mrs. Gresser (Mrs. was her preferred title) took lessons from International Master Hans Kmoch and Grandmaster Arthur Bisguier. She was also the first woman to be inducted into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame, which happened in 1992. Gresser was an accomplished painter and musician, as well as a classical scholar. 8.bxc3 Qc7 9.f4 Nxc3 10.Qg4 Stronger was 10.Qf3 Nd5 11.Nb5 Qc5 12.Nd6+ Kf8 13.Qh5 g6 14.Qh6+ Kg8 15.c4 followed by Ne4 and Nf6. 31.Rxd3 Rd7 White was threatening 32.Bxc6 bxc6 33.Be5, or if 32... Qxc6 33.Rd8+ Re8 34.Qe7!