Hou Yifan One Point From Title
GM Hou Yifan now has three wins and three draws from six games against Women's World Champion GM Anna Ushenina in their best-of-ten series. The Chinese teenager, playing near her hometown in Taizhou, now only needs one point from her final four games to recapture the top title in women's chess.
Hou Yifan won her third game today from the Black side to remain perfect with that color. Unlke rounds one and three, which were Nimzo-Indians, the Queen's Indian was used in round six. Even with the change, Hou Yifan did not spend much time in the opening, and got her attack going with a Benoni-style pawn structure.
Ushenina tried to mitigate the pressure with an exchange sacrifice, but Black's rooks proved too dominant. Running low on time, White began to make errors leading up to the time control.
Facing a desperate situation, Ushenina made her 40th move, Bxa1, but her time ran out before she pressed her clock, leading to a loss on time.
All three games in which Hou Yifan was White ended in draws.
The players will have a rest day tomorrow, with round seven to come September 20th. The match could end then, if Hou Yifan wins with White to get to the winning margin of 5.5 points.
All pictures courtesy FIDE Press Officer Anastasiya Karlovich.
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Mike Klein began playing chess at the age of four in Charlotte, NC. In 1986, he lost to Josh Waitzkin at the National Championship featured in the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer." A year later, Mike became the youngest member of the very first All-America Chess Team, and was on the team a total of eight times. In 1988, he won the K-3 National Championship, and eventually became North Carolina's youngest-ever master. In 1996, he won clear first for under-2250 players in the top section of the World Open. Mike has taught chess full-time for a dozen years in New York City and Charlotte, with his students and teams winning many national championships. He now works at Chess.com as a Senior Journalist and at ChessKid.com as the Chief Chess Officer. In 2012, 2015, and 2018, he was awarded Chess Journalist of the Year by the Chess Journalists of America. He has also previously won other awards from the CJA such as Best Tournament Report, and also several writing awards for mainstream newspapers. His chess writing and personal travels have now brought him to more than 85 countries.
