Hou Yifan


Hou Yifan (2016)
Association	China People's Republic People's Republic of China
Born	February 27, 1994 Xinghua , Jiangsu Province
title	Women's Grandmaster (2007) Grandmaster (2008)
world champion	2010–2012 2013–2015 2016–2017
Current Elo rating	2658 (August 2020)
Best Elo rating	2686 (March-May 2015)
Tab at the FIDE (English)

Hou Yifan (Chinese 侯逸凡; Hóu Yìfán, born February 27, 1994 in Xinghua , Jiangsu Province ) is a Chinese chess player . She was chess world champion from 2010 to 2012, from 2013 to 2015 and from 2016 to 2017 , but decided not to participate in the existing world championship cycle for women due to dissatisfaction with the tournament mode. Since March 2015 (with an interruption in August 2015) she has been number 1 in the FIDE world rankings for women.

Chess successes

Hou Yifan won the World Youth Championship in the U10 female age group in 2003 and took third place in the U10 age group the following year. When she won the Chinese Women's Championship in 2007, at the age of 13, she was the youngest ever winner in the history of the competition. In March 2008 she won the Ataturk International Women Masters in Istanbul with 7 points from 9 games. In August 2008, she attracted particular attention because, as a 14-year-old, she was the only girl to play in the general junior tournament against male competition at the Junior World Championships (U20) instead of in the girls' tournament. She reached 9 points from 13 games and ended up tied with four other participants on place 3-7. The Elo rating of 2661 she achieved brought her the second grandmaster norm . She had reached the first half a year earlier at the Moscow Aeroflot Open .

At the 2008 Chess Olympiad she played on the top board of the Chinese women's team and scored 7.5 points from 11 games. In April 2010, Hou Yifan won the 3rd Kuala Lumpur International Open Chess Championship with 7.5 points from 9 rounds.

After previously holding the title of women's grandmaster , she reached the third norm for the general grandmaster title at the women's world championship in September 2008 at the age of 14 years, 6 months and 2 days, which she received at the 79th FIDE Congress during the Chess Olympiad was officially awarded in Dresden. This made her the youngest female holder of this title to date. At the same time, as the successor to Wesley So , she was the youngest grandmaster ever for a few months, until she was replaced in this category by Anish Giri , who achieved his third GM standard in February 2009. At the Tradewise Chess Festival 2012 in Gibraltar she achieved an Elo performance of 2872 with 8 points from 10 games and only had to admit defeat to Nigel Short with 0.5: 1.5 in a playoff for the tournament victory over two blitz games . In this tournament she also managed to win against Judit Polgár . Hou Yifan qualified for the World Chess Cup four times ( 2009 , 2011 , 2013 and 2015 ). In her first three appearances she failed in the first round, in 2015 she prevailed in the first round with 2.5: 1.5 against Rafael Leitão and was defeated by Şəhriyar Məmmədyarov with the same result in the second round .

Hou Yifan (2016)

At the Tradewise Chess Festival 2017 in Gibraltar, Hou Yifan caused an incident in the last round when she gave up her game after making obvious mistakes after move 5 (1. g4 d5 2. f3 e5 3. d3 Qh4 + 4. Kd2 h5 5. h3 hxg4 0: 1 ). She justified her style of play by saying that she wanted to protest against the fixings of the games. Hou faced seven female opponents in ten rounds and thought this could not be a coincidence. On the one hand, this is unfair to the other players, on the other hand, male players with the same level of play usually have a higher ELO rating and thus deprive them of the opportunity to improve their own rating. The organizers rejected the allegations on the grounds that the appointments were carried out by a computer (see Swiss system ). Apparently, Hou had already expressed her displeasure earlier in the tournament. The world chess federation FIDE dealt with the case in the FIDE Arbiter's Handbook and reconstructed the Gibraltar pairings by hand. It was found that the strange seeming series of opponents had actually been drawn correctly; Both a corresponding error in the computer program used and a manipulation against Hou are therefore excluded.

Training is Hou Yifan of the Chinese grandmasters Ye Jiangchuan and Yu Shaoteng .

**Elo development**

World chess champion

At the 2008 Women's World Cup in Nalchik , Hou eliminated favorite K. Humpy in the semi-finals after a tie- break , but lost the final to Alexandra Kostenjuk with 2.5: 1.5. At the women's world championship held in Antakya in December 2010 , she eliminated the Elo favorite K. Humpy in the semifinals with 1.5: 0.5 and defeated her compatriot Ruan Lufei with 5: 3 in the final . She is the thirteenth and so far youngest world chess champion.

In 2011 she won the women's Grand Prix tournaments in Rostov-on-Don in August and Shenzhen in September, each with 8 points from 11 games. At the Chess World Cup 2011 she was eliminated in the first round with 0: 2 against Sergej Movsesjan . In November 2011 she defended her world title in Tirana with a 5.5: 2.5 against K. Humpy. In July 2012, Hou Yifan won the Grand Prix tournament in Jermuk with 7 points from 11 games and thus secured an early victory in the overall Grand Prix standings for 2011/2012.

At the 2012 World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk , which was played with 64 players in the knockout system, Hou Yifan was surprisingly eliminated in the second round against Monika Soćko . Anna Uschenina became the new world champion . With her Grand Prix victory, Hou Yifan had already qualified for the next competition for the world title. In September 2013 she handled Uschenina in Taizhou with 5.5: 1.5 (+4 = 3 −0). In April 2014 she won the Grand Prix tournament in Khanty-Mansiysk with a superior score of 8.5 points from 11 games. She also came first at the Grand Prix tournament in Lopota in June 2014, with 9 points from 11 games and an Elo performance of 2772.

In 2015 she did not take part in the knockout tournament for the World Chess Championship due to a scheduling conflict , whereby she lost her title without a fight, but was challenged by world champion Marija Musytschuk in March by winning the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2013-2014 2016 scheduled duel for the title qualified. She won this 6: 3 (+3 = 6 −0).

In May 2016, Hou announced that she no longer wanted to participate in the current women's world championship cycle. The reason she gave was that she was dissatisfied with the mode of play and would prefer a mode similar to that of the general World Chess Championship.

National team

Nadeschda Kossinzewa (left board 2) and Hou Yifan (right board 1) Chess Olympiad 2012 in Istanbul

Hou Yifan took part in all the Chess Olympiads with the Chinese women's team from 2006 to 2016 . She achieved a first (2016), three second ( 2010 , 2012 and 2014 ) and a third place (2006) with the team , in the individual ranking when she first participated in 2006, she achieved the second-best result of the reserve players and the third-best Elo performance of all participants, the third best result in their further participation on the top board in 2008 and 2010, the best in 2012 and the second best result in 2014 and 2016.

In addition, she won the women's team championships with China in 2007, 2009 and 2011, in which she also won one gold, three silver and one bronze medal in the individual standings, the women's chess competition at the 2010 Asian Games and the chess competitions at the Asian Indoor Games 2007 and 2009.

societies

In the Chinese team championship, Hou Yifan played for Shandong from 2005 to 2011 , with whom she won the championship in 2007 and 2010 , and in 2012 she played for Jiangsu Taizhou . At the European Club Cup Women Hou Yifan 2007 took South Ural Chelyabinsk , 2008 Spartak Vidnoe and 2010 by 2014 CE Monte Carlo part. She won the competition in 2010, 2012 and 2013, in the individual ranking she achieved the best result on the second board in 2007 and 2010, and on the first board in 2013 and 2014.

Since the 2017/18 season she has been registered in both general and women's matches for the Bundesliga teams of OSG Baden-Baden and won the women's Bundesliga 2017/18 and the 2018/19 Bundesliga with them . Hou won the British Four Nations Chess League with Guildford in 2019 .