Dinara Khaziyeva

Dinara Khaziyeva was born on 2 August 1986 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. She moved to Canada and became a prominent chess player, earning the FIDE title of Woman International Master (WIM) in 2004. In the same year, she won the Women's Canadian Chess Championship, which also served as the American Zonal 2.1 tournament, qualifying her for the Women's World Chess Championship. In the knockout stage, she lost in the first round to Alisa Galliamova.

Khaziyeva represented Canada in the Women's Chess Olympiads three times: in 2002 (Bled), 2004 (Calvià), and 2006 (Turin). Her peak FIDE rating was 2125 in July 2004, and she remains inactive in chess since around 2010.

In addition to chess, Khaziyeva also plays poker. According to The Hendon Mob, her largest live cash game winnings were $55,283. Her recorded poker results include two cashes in WSOP Circuit events:

• November 18, 2013 – WSOP Circuit at Casino Lac-Leamy, Event #7: No-Limit Hold'em Main Event – 3rd place out of 371 entries, earning $55,283.
• November 17, 2012 – WSOP Circuit at River Rock, Event #11: PlayNow.com Online No-Limit Hold'em – 6th place out of 223 entries, earning $2,576.

These results amount to total earnings of $57,859 in live tournaments according to WSOP.com, though The Hendon Mob reports $55,283 as a single cash.

Khaziyeva lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and also has a residence in Montreal, Quebec. She works as a real estate agent and is married to Canadian chess player Emmanuel Desmarais.

While her chess playing style is not extensively documented, tournament data from 365Chess.com shows she played a repertoire with white pieces favoring the Nimzovich-Larsen Attack (ECO A01) and often defended with the Pirc Defence (B07) as black. In poker, no detailed style analysis is available from the search results.

Khaziyeva is notable as a dual-career competitor in both chess and poker, having achieved the WIM title in chess and cashed in major poker events. Her career exemplifies the crossover between intellectual games at the competitive level.