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Hou Yifan was one of 24 players selected to play in the FIDE Grand Prix 2017, a qualification stage for the World Chess Championship 2018. She reached position 17 in the final standings, and thus was not able to qualify for the Championship. Will the world's highest-rated woman return to chess full-time in the future? The answer wasn't a "yes," but it wasn't a "no" either! In 2005 as an 11-year-old, Hou qualified for the World Women’s Chess Championship (to be held the following year) by winning a Chinese Women’s Zonal tournament with 6/9 points. The same year she was the youngest person to play in the World Team Chess Championship. Hou Yifan at the 2005 World Team Chess Championship. Photo: Y. Levi. In 2009 Hou placed in the top 10 at the Asian Chess Championship, which qualified her for the 2009 Chess World Cup (she lost in the first round to GM Arkadij Naiditsch). In August she won the “best female prize” at the Jubilee Open, where she placed in joint 17th place with 6.5/9 points. Four-time (And Youngest-ever) Women's World Champion (2010 To 2016) In June, she took part in a tournament in India, the AAI International Grandmasters Chess Tournament 2011. [125] She finished with a dismal last place, but in August, she rebounded to win clear first place in the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2011–2012 tournament in Rostov, Russia. [126] She then went on to win the second Grand Prix stage in Shenzhen in September 2011. [127]
From 9 June to 22 June, Hou played in the 4th leg of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2011–2012 held in Kazan, Russia. Coming immediately off the heels of the recently completed Chinese Men's super tournament in Danzhou, she started off slowly with 2 points in the first 5 rounds before closing strongly with 4 wins in the final 6 rounds. She finished joint 3rd–4th. 7/11 (+5 −2 = 4; TPR 2604). Hou played in the Nakhchivan Open 2015 in from 1 to 11 May. Seeded 3rd by rating, she finished in a nine-way tie for joint 4th–12th with a 6/9 score (+5 −2 =2, TPR 2581). [156] The family spent six months driving around Europe, ferrying Magnus to competitions and sightseeing. Ellen started playing again, and their younger sister Ingrid began playing, too. Ellen became a strong club player, with a peak rating of 1939. “Some of my best friends are girls and boys from the chess world,” she told me. But she tired of the attention that came with being one of the few women in chess, and one with the last name Carlsen. It made her anxious, she said, to see the best players in a hall gathered around her board, studying her moves. She didn’t feel her intelligence was being judged, she noted. “I don’t think I have ever felt intellectually inferior to any of the guys I played against,” she said, adding, “I think to most people it is clear that your chess rating is not identical to your intellectual abilities.” Her brother became a Grandmaster at thirteen, and world champion a decade later. Ellen became a doctor. Rated 2686 in the March 2015 FIDE rating list, Hou was the world no. 59 player and world no. 1 woman player (overtaking the recently retired Judit Polgár's rating for the first time). On 1 July 2006, she was the youngest ever player to enter the Top 50 Women (Number 8) [173] and Top 20 Girls (Number 2) [174] FIDE lists aged 12 (rated 2488), since FIDE began releasing these lists in 2000. [ citation needed] Yifan Hou scored GM norm at Aeroflot". Susanpolgar.blogspot.com. 22 February 2008 . Retrieved 3 December 2011.Olympiad in Dresden: Closing ceremony and prize giving". Chessbase.com. 29 November 2008 . Retrieved 3 December 2011. With the postponement of the Women's World Chess Championship 2014 [148] she played in the Corsican Chess Circuit in October and won, beating Sergey Fedorchuk in the final. This has been described as the most important tournament yet to be won by a female player other than Judit Polgár. [149] [150] [151]
When Hou turned twenty one in 2015 she lost her junior status. She ended the year, and her junior playing career, as the reigning Women's World Chess Champion, the 2nd highest rated female player, the highest rated girl, the 4th highest rated junior and the 71st highest overall rated active player with a FIDE rating of 2673. [153] 2015 [ edit ] Wijk R13: Sergey Karjakin wins Wijk aan Zee 2009". Chess News. February 2009 . Retrieved 17 October 2015. When Hou was fourteen, she shared third place in the open section of the World Junior Chess Championship, in Turkey, and became the fifteenth-youngest person, to that point, to achieve the rank of Grandmaster. Later that year, she reached the finals of the Women’s World Chess Championship, and finished second. She developed a reputation on tour for kindness, and for mental strength. In 2010, she returned to the finals, and came into her fourth game needing just a draw to win—and lost. It was one of the rare occasions when a game got to her. That night, she walked with her mother and her coach around the garden of their hotel until she was calm. The next day, in tiebreaks, she overwhelmed her opponent and compatriot Ruan Lufei. At sixteen, Hou was the youngest-ever women’s world champion, and among the world’s best teen-age players. It was possible to imagine other summits that she might climb. But Hou had her own ambitions. In August, she was clear first at the Category 16 50th Biel Chess Festival with 6.5/9 points (+5 −1 =3, TPR 2810). [170] From 11 to 18 December, Hou played in the 2014 SportAccord World Mind Games held in Beijing, China. The Mind Games consists of separate tournaments in 3 disciplines: rapid, blitz and basque. In the rapid event, she placed second capturing the silver medal, losing only to Valentina Gunina, the eventual event winner. Her performance was 5/7 (+4 −1 = 3, rapid TPR 2672). She won the gold medal in the blitz event with a 22.5/30 score (+20 −5 = 5, TPR 2718). Especially noteworthy in her blitz tournament was her performance pushed her official blitz rating to 2704, making her the second female player to cross the 2700 barrier in any rating format. In the final basque system event, Hou took home another gold medal with an 8.5/10 score (+7 =3). [152]Karpov and Ivanchuk in the semi-finals of Cap d'Agde". Chessbase.com. 29 October 2008 . Retrieved 3 December 2011. I’ve spoken to a number of people who are convinced that Hou would have risen higher if she’d made the game her singular focus. “I believe she could have been top twenty,” Irina Bulmaga told me. Bulmaga admitted that a part of her was disappointed that Hou hadn’t done so. “The more you see, the more you believe maybe you could achieve it, too,” she said. Hou, though, speaks without regrets. Enkhtuul Altan-Ulzii, a Woman Grandmaster from Mongolia who is one of Hou’s closest friends, told me, “She is not actually results oriented. She plays for fun and enjoyment.”
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