Karpov beats Hou Yifan 3.5-2.5
In a short match consisting of four classical games and two rapid games, Anatoly Karpov defeated Hou Yifan 3.5-2.5. In the city of Sanya, Hainan, China the 12th World Champion won the first game; the rest ended in draws.
Photo © Ye RongguangThe Anatoli Karpov - Hou Yifan Match took place from 6 to 11 November 2010 at the Wenhua Oriental Hotel in Sanya city, Hainan, China. The time control of the classical games was 90 minutes in total, with 30 seconds from the 1st move. The rapid games were played at 25 minutes per person plus 10 seconds increment from the 1st move.
Only once did we see something that recalked the great Karpov in his best days: in the very first game. From an equal position in a Four Knights, the 59-year-old Russian outplayed his 43 years younger opponent in an ending with rooks and opposite-coloured bishops.In the second game Hou Yifan seized the initiative with the Black pieces in a Ragozin and got a strong passed pawn all the way to c3, but then she let the advantage slip away. The third game was more or less balanced all the time in a Berlin Wall, and then the fourth was a complete repetition of l'Ami-Adams, Staunton Memorial 2008! A bit of a disappointment, and perhaps a sign that Karpov's opening preparation isn't what it used to be.After the first rapid game ended in a draw, Hou Yifan missed a few wins in the final game, and thereby the last opportunity to level the score. Therefore the result might not reflect exactly the course of the games, but a win is a win - another one to add to Karpov's long list. What Hou Yifan needs is experience, and no doubt she learnt a lot from playing and analyzing with this great player.
Games with brief annotations
Game viewer by ChessTempoLinks
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Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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