Hou makes history

Despite being the women’s world champion, China’s 17-year-old Hou Yifan never started out as a favourite in the Tradewise Gibraltar chess festival a few weeks ago. 

In the first place, Hou’s international rating was “only” at 2605 points and there were at least 20 high-profile players who were ranked very much higher than her. And actually, 11 of them were players whose ratings placed them in the super-grandmaster class. If anybody were favourites to win this chess festival, well, she wasn’t one of them.

Secondly, there was always Judit Polgar who has been the top ranked woman chess player for as long as anybody could remember. She is a 2700-plus chess grandmaster and all women chess players walk in her shadow. 

But Hou had arrived in Gibraltar with a reputation of her own. She was the women’s world champion and only a few months back, she had demonstrated how easy it was for her to defend her world title against an opponent who was on paper ranked above her. Her rivals would have done well to study her games.

With this as the background, Hou began the Gibraltar masters tournament without making any loud impression. 

In the first round, she quietly dispatched off a Swiss Fide master, Emanuel Schiendorfer, and then easily refuted a rash attack from the English international master Adam Hunt in the second round.

Her first real test was in the third round but she proved that the Hungarian grandmaster Zoltan Almasi was no big obstacle for her. 

The fourth round could be considered as Hou’s first appearance in the Gibraltar limelight. Against the experienced English grandmaster, Michael Adams, she played faultlessly to neutralize Adams’ game plan and both players agreed to split the point.

It was in the fifth round that she received her first and only setback in the tournament. The Indian grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran, presumably much wiser to Hou’s style of play than the Westerners, never gave her much of a chance in their game and he converted his positional advantage into a full point.

After that loss, Hou retreated back into the crowd. Against the Ukraine international master Mariya Muzychuk in the sixth round, the Chinese ace displayed her usual form to win almost effortlessly.

The seventh round witnessed Hou’s historical game against Judit Polgar which I had written about last week. As the two had never met across the chess board before, this game generated quite a lot of interest around the world. The fact that Hou won this game ensured that this historical moment would be remembered for a long time to come.

After this win, the spotlight returned to Hou and it never left her again until the end of the tournament. The Vietnamese grandmaster Le Quang Liem was the next to feel the power of Hou’s will as he wilted under her persistent tactical pressure on the board.

 

In the ninth round, she was paired against the Latvian grandmaster Alexei Shirov. For a brief moment, it seemed as though Hou’s position was under great pressure but in a quick turn of events, she emerged with real winning chances which she converted into a full point after an interesting endgame.

By then, Hou had surged ahead to become the sole leader in the tournament. All she required in the final round was at least a draw with the Azeri grandmaster Shakhriyar Mamedyarov to take a share of the first prize. She took it instead of risking everything to beat her opponent.

This draw, however, enabled the English grandmaster Nigel Short the chance to creep up on her and finish with equal points. Technically on tie-break, Hou was the winner of the Gibraltar masters tournament but the rules of the chess festival required the two players to play two quick games to determine the overall winner.

Unfortunately for Hou, she was no match for the wily Short in this department. Short had honed his chess skills playing just this type of chess on the Internet chess servers and his experience quickly told on Hou as he won the first game of the tie-break before he offered her a draw in the second game.

For all her efforts, she received STG12,000 as the second prize but she also received STG10,000 as the best woman player and STG600 as the best junior player. Short came away with the STG20,000 first prize and a further STG5,000 special prize set up to honour Queen Elizabeth’s diamond jubilee.

Up Next

Perak grand prix

The Perak International Chess Association (PICA) will organise the second leg of this year’s Tan Sri Lee Loy Seng chess grand prix tournament at the Chinese Recreation Club in Taiping on Mar 4. After the success of the first leg in Kuala Kangsar on Sunday which attracted 313 participants from around the peninsula, PICA is hopeful of an equally good response in Taiping. 

This second leg in Taiping will be played over seven rounds with a 25-minute time control. The four remaining legs will be held in Slim River, Bagan Serai, Kampar and Ipoh. Other than cash prizes, points are awarded to the top 10 winners of each leg and these would accumulate till the final leg. 

Players can register for the open, the under-16 or the under-12 sections. Grand prix points shall be awarded to the top 10 winners of the open section of each leg and these would accumulate till the final leg in Ipoh. Those that register under the two junior categories will not be eligible for the open prizes or grand prix points. 

Entry fees for the second leg in Taiping: RM25 (open section), RM15 (under 16 years old), RM10 (under 12 years old). For PICA members and Perak residents: RM20 (open section), RM10 (players under 16 years old). For more information, call Yunus (013.3908129), Abu Bakar Martin (019.4007663), Azhar (013.4570443) or check the PICA blog at http://perakchess.blogspot.com for updates. 

Rakan Muda JB

The Rakan Muda Johor Bahru, Johor Chess Academy, Johor Bahru Chess Association and the Southerncity Giant hypermarket are the joint organisers of this year’s seventh Johor Bahru junior tournament on Sunday. Venue will be the concourse area of the hypermarket in Johor Bahru. Seven-round Swiss event with 25 minutes time control.

Entry fees: RM15 (players under 17 years old) and RM13 (players under 12 years old). Closing date for entries is today. Details available from Narayanan Krishnan (013.7717525, jb_chess_association@yahoo.com).

USM chess festival

This year’s 18th Universiti Sains Malaysia chess festival will comprise an eight-round individual event on Mar 10-11 and a seven-round team event on Mar 17-18. Time control for both events will be 45 minutes per game. 

Entry fees for the individual tournament are RM17 (under-12 players), RM19 (under-18 players), RM21 (university and college players) and RM27 (others). Members of the Penang Chess Association will be charged at RM15, RM17, RM19 and RM22 respectively. For the team event, entry fees are RM80 (under-12 teams), RM90 (under-18 teams), RM100 (university, college and school teams) and RM110 (all other teams). 

Details are available from Ng Sok Ling (014.9443919, sokling_9100@hotmail.com), Chung Yao Liang (017.4343182, yaoliang_1228@yahoo.com) or Lee Youn Hock (014.9445491, chessmanlee@hotmail.com). 

National age group

The Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) will organise this year’s national age group chess championships at the Olympic Council of Malaysia’s indoor stadium in Kuala Lumpur on Mar 11 to 13. Eight rounds with a time control of 45 minutes, plus increment time of 30 seconds per move.

There are six separate categories for both boys and girls – the under-eight, under-10, under-12, under-14, under-16 and under-18 – which will mean that the 12 events will be played simultaneously. Entry fee is RM40 per player if paid before Mar 7. After this date, acceptance of registration shall be at the discretion of the organisers and the entry fee is increased to RM80.

The top four players from each category shall qualify to represent the country at the world, Asian, ASEAN and other age group events subject to the acceptance of the federation’s terms and conditions.

Entry forms can be downloaded from http://malaysianchessfederation.blogspot.com. For inquiries, contact Hamid Majid (019.3158098, aham@pc.jaring.my), Gregory Lau (017.2898215, msianchess2010@gmail.com), Lim Tse Pin (012.2984922, tsepin@gmail.com), Zuraihah Wazir (017.2837808) or Haslindah Ruslan (019.2069605).