Hou Yifan charming lovely intelligent well spoken

[Hans Jung]

I really enjoyed the master class and interview of Hou Yifan yesterday at Gibraltar! Even though you could see she was translating in her head from Chinese her English was quite good and she was very expressive. She came across as having great character but was modest and frank and of course very charming. She enjoys reading, especially classical books and even brought a few to read at Gibraltar. She mentioned that chess players should not just use computers but also read chess books to round out their knowledge - and big surprise - shes not playing in the womens world championship because she signed a contract to play in Hawaii and FIDE changed the dates again with not enough notice.

[Laurentiu Grigorescu]

Re: Hou Yifan charming lovely intelligent well spoken

And the list of her qualities keeps getting longer! She proved her toughness and fighting spirit in Wijk an Zee and now in Gibraltar, where she saved an important half point against Svidler yesterday. Depending on what she achieves tomorrow, she may end up with more prize money than the overall winner. Well deserved!

[Lee Hendon]

Re: Hou Yifan charming lovely intelligent well spoken

She beat Richard Rapport which gives her 15,000 pounds for top women and 2685.7 on the live list!

[Bindi Cheng]

Re: Hou Yifan charming lovely intelligent well spoken

Indeed quite impressive. I wasn't sure what to make of her a few years back when she was teetering around 2500-2600 but now that she's in the top 2600 and seems poised to break 2700 in the near future, it's pretty clear she's the Judit Polgar of the 21st century. I'm glad that not only is she a talented and hard-working chess player but she seems to have a warm personality which should suit the future of women in chess very nicely. She's still not quite at the same level as the top men players in China but I'm glad they're giving her a chance to do so by having her play in all these world class tournaments rather than women only tournaments where the competition will not be as challenging.

As a casual throwaway, I first saw her at the 2007 World Juniors and at that age she was already 2500 while I was a measly sub 2200. It looks like she's kept up the pace since then :)

[Nigel Hanrahan]

why would she play in an event to determine her opponent?

(Hou Yifan is) ... not playing in the Women's World Championship because she signed a contract to play in Hawaii and FIDE changed the dates again with not enough notice.

I thought there were 2 World Championships for women; a knockout and then a match between Hou Yifan, who is already qualified as the Challenger for the title, and the winner of the knockout.

The comments about FIDE this and FIDE that seem irrelevant, unless the general principle is to defecate on FIDE at every opportunity.

Why would she play in a tournament whose purpose is to determine her opponent? Perhaps I'm missing something? Does the knockout pay better than these other events she is attending? Or maybe being "the Champion" instead of "the Challenger" entitles her to some advantage(s)?

Women's World Chess Championship is between Hou Yifan and XYZ

[Garland Best]

Re: why would she play in an event to determine her opponent?

FIDE's structure for the Women's world championship is simply illogical and incoherent. The winner of the knockout tournament gets the title of "Women's World Champion", and Hou Yifan could play in it. Then in October You Hifan plays against the World Championship for the title. It doesn't make sense.

The logical structure is to call the knockout tournament the womens candidates tournament with the winner to play the Current World's Championship for the title. I can only guess that there are so few all-women's tournaments that if you exclude the WWC from all of them, she would lose substantial revenue. Winning the title would result in less earnings in the long run.

For Magnus at least the title provides enough monies that he doesn't have to play in the events leading up to and including the candidates tournament. He can simply watch from the sidelines.

[Nigel Hanrahan]

A different FIDE schedule would have got the same answer from Hou Yifan

That's an odd reply Garland. You seem to agree with whatever decision Hou Yifan makes on her own behalf but you still manage to find fault with FIDE for the jumbled schedule.

It really seems to me that Hou Yifan had no intention of playing in the knockout event, whenever it was, and that a better schedule would have gotten the same reply from her. In fact, I think she even said as much in a recent interview. If that's true, then nothing FIDE did would have mattered. She will get her chance to re-acquire the WCh title again in the fall and, by many accounts, will win again.

[Garland Best]

Re: A different FIDE schedule would have got the same answer from Hou Yifan

My thought was that FIDE's possible motivation for structuring the WWC as they did was to include the current champion in the various tournaments so she gets a share of the revenue. However the result is illogical. Either include the champion in the grand prix / knockout tournament and the winner is the world champion, end of story, or have the current champion not participating in those events, and the winner takes her on for the title in a match. But don't try to have it both ways.

Hou Yifan can do what she thinks is best for her chess career, given the rules put in place. AFAIK, there was doubt of there even being a WWC this year, and given this Hou Yifan agreed to play in Hawaii.

[Jack Maguire]

Re: A different FIDE schedule would have got the same answer from Hou Yifan

The 2015 European Champion, Evgeniy Najer (2674/2700/2635), and Hou Yifan (2683/2625/2704) have near tantamount ratings but you wouldn't have known it by their encounter this week.

http://en.chessbase.com/post/hou-yif...er-in-shanghai