World Women Chess Champion GM Hou YiFan is "monkeying"*** everyone at Gibraltar ......

Just a short blog to inform faithful readers of the blog that GM Hou YiFan is making waves at the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival 2012. For the first time in many years, GM Judit Polgar agreed to play in an Open where many other women chessplayers compete as well. Gibraltar has a tradition of offering incentives to women to compete. As result, the scene was set this year for potential games between the top three women players on the Fide rating list, GM Judit Polgar, GM Hou YiFan and GM Koneru Humpy.

GM Hou YiFan began well and was amongst the leaders after 4 rounds with 3.5/4 including a Rd 3 win over GM Zoltan Almasi (rated 2700+) and a Rd 4 draw with GM Mickey Adams. GM Judit Polgar also began well conceding only two draws. One of the draws was in Rd 4 where Judit faced off GM Koneru Humpy. Similarly Koneru also began well with 3/4 (+2 =2).

YiFan was then completely wiped off the board by Indian GM Krishnan Sasikiran in Rd 5 but bounced back with a win in Rd 6. Judit continued being undefeated in Rds 5 (win) and 6 (draw) whilst Koneru won in Rd 5 but lost to GM Nigel Short in Rd 6.

Then came the Rd 7 and the dream pairing, GM Hou YiFan vs GM Judit Polgar. and the young 17 year old came out the better winning in 47 moves. According to GM Alejandro Ramirez, Judit made two weak moves , moves 20 and 24, which led to her loss. See the annotations by GM Ramirez here. See also here and here.
In addition, GM Zoltan Almasi has worked with Judit as her second for many years. That means YiFan has defeated the Polgar team in the same tournament.

In the latest round, YiFan has defeated the top Vietnamese player, GM Le Quang Liem (see game here). This is the 4th 2700+ GM that YiFan (Elo 2605) has either defeated or drew with! She is now co-leader with Mickey after 8 rounds and faces GM Alexei Shirov with the black pieces in rd 9.

In the last year or so, there were comments that YiFan's progress in chess was being stifled by playing only in women-only chess tournaments. However, it has been noticeable that since defending her World Championship title against Koneru that YiFan has been playing in Open tournaments.

Is this the beginning of the rise to World Championship for YiFan?



*** I should explain before I get flamed that it is meant as a triple entendre. Gibraltar is famous for its monkeys but the monkey reference is actually a reference to the mythical Monkey King/God form the book, The Journey to the West, who wreaked havoc in the Heavens before being imprisoned by Buddha. Lastly, "hou", is a homophone which can mean monkey as well as being a respected family name.