Gibraltar Round 9: Hou Yifan Strikes Again!

SonofPearl
on 2/1/12 11:05 AM.

Tradewise Gibraltar Chess banner.jpg

FLASH REPORT

The women's world champion Hou Yifan is having an amazing tournament in the 2012 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Masters.

She had already beaten three 2700+ players (Zoltan Almasi, Judit Polgar and Le Quang Liem) to be the joint leader with Mickey Adams after eight rounds, and in round 9 she faced Alexei "Fire on Board" Shirov. Another top GM scalp was claimed!

Another test for Hou Yifan in Gibraltar (photo © Ray Morris-Hill)

Gibraltar 2012 Rd9 Alexei Shirov - Hou Yifan.jpg

With Mickey Adams currently in trouble against Zoltan Almasi, it looks like Hou Yifan will be the sole leader going into the last round! [Update: Adams drew with Almasi, but Yifan is still the sole leader]

7353 reads 38 comments

2 votes

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Comments

16 months ago
bEastNest

brilliant!
16 months ago
chessdoggblack

Inside the perfect storm or inside the tigers cage....your choice! Best...regards - Hou Yifan the "Chess" crusher.
16 months ago
rongchen

Fantasic play =)
16 months ago
joey0094

great game against gm shirov ms. hou yifan, congratulations!
16 months ago
tarnowski

well played hou :)
16 months ago
StakeOut

awesome woman power
16 months ago
novzki41

so will we see a carlsen vs hou match anytime soon?
16 months ago
IM pfren

Viktor Erdos was an U-14 world champion back in 2001, so he cannot be a bad player.
16 months ago
Eternal_Patzer

Wow. Check out her performance rating for the tournament.

2892!

http://chess-results.com/tnr63931.aspx?art=9&lan=1&fed=CHN&snr=25
16 months ago
Petrosianic

Hou Yifan is performing excellently! Her win against Le Quang Liem was most impressive. Polgar and Almasi made surprising inaccuracies for 2700 players but full credit to Hou Yifan for converting her advantages excellently. Besides Hou - Shak, interesting pairings include Polgar - Korchnoi, Berg - Vachier Lagrave, Negi - Le Quang Liem, and Saskiran - Short. And there's some GM Erdos at 2634 I've never heard of before playing Sutovsky. Of players of the US of A, Akobian is at 6, and Zatonskih and Arnold both at 5 1/2.
16 months ago
jesterville

wow...Yifan Hou is playing some amazing chess here...clearly above her rating. The thing is she is whipping them with black. This girl is for real...
16 months ago
sdt07

Amazing Hou Yifan!
16 months ago
pawngenius

I love you Hou Yifan!
16 months ago
enrique28

Great Hou Yifan!!!!!
16 months ago
platolag

Congrats Hou. You have shown the world that your win against Judit was no FLUKE! Amazing run....
16 months ago
maturner

If she wins this tournament it would have to be one of the greatest performances of all time if not the greatest.
16 months ago
yullian

that was a very proud game against Shirov. looks like beating Shirov is a legitimate way to say you are good! btw, a (chinese) tv interview with Hou Yifan link here http://adf.ly/57Z7J , see the comments for some english clue.
16 months ago
theinvisibleboy

She is a woman. Hou Yifan belongs in the kitchen.
16 months ago
drumdaddy

Wow! What a roll!
16 months ago
Elubas

Great job, Hou Yifan. I wonder though if this is like that insane performance by Zsofia Polgar, who is the creator of a performance that is in the top 5 for greatest tournament performances ever. I'm not sure how good Zsofia was (she may have been a GM but not even close to a Super GM), but the amount of top players she beat in that one event, as someone so much lower ranked, created a colossal anomaly.

But that's probably not what this is: She's already a 2600 player, and probably a rising one.