Tuesday, June 7, 2011

2011 Humpy v. Hou: Update

Current Women's World Chess Champion (title won December, 2010) Hou Yifan of China, the youngest yet female champion, continues intense and public preparation for the scheduled women's chess championship match scheduled for November-December, 2011.

As far as I am aware, no announcement of a winning bid has yet been made, so it's up in the air as to whether said championship match will actually take place.  I hope someone will come through with an acceptable bid, because this is one match (10 games) I would like to see.

Hou Yifan is all over the place, it seems!  Humpy is nowhere to be found!  It's driving me nuts - what is Humpy doing????

And hmmmm...... I wonder if it's driving Yifan nuts, too????

Ahhhhhh, the psychology of chess.  Anyone who thinks chess is just a sport hasn't got the half of it!  The Art of War is much more like it...

Hou is currently playing in the Chinese League as Board No. 5(!) on Shandong (a women only team) and has 5.0/6.

For the May FIDE reporting period, Humpy has 11 games recorded, Hou has 20. However, Humpy's games were from the which occurred in February! She had no games for the March FIDE reporting games.

In contrast, Hou's 20 games include the March 30, 2011 China Individual Championship Division A Men, and the April 16, 2011 First Chinese Female Professional Chess Championship (11 games).

Next up for Hou:

Women's world champ Hou Yifan ready for AAI Grandmasters chess
New Delhi, June 6 (IANS)
Reigning women's world champion Hou Yifan of China is all set p for the upcoming inaugural Airports Authority of India (AAI) Grandmasters Chess Tournament beginning here June 21.

The 17-year-old, who last year became the youngest-ever world champion in either the men's or women's section, will become the first women's reigning champion to play in India since Maya Chiburdanidze played in India in the early 1980s.

Apart from Hou, the other participants will be World Junior No.1 GM Fabiano Caruana of Italy, Philippines' No. 1 GM Wesely So, Czech Republic No. 2 GM Viktor Laznicka; India No. 2 GM Krishnan Sasikiran and the reigning Indian National Champion GM Parimarjan Negi.

The tournament will offer prize of $24,500. The winner will take $8,000 and the runner-up $6,000.

Hou, who interestingly will be challenged by India's Koneru Humpy for the world title later this year, is using the tournament as part of her preparations. She was recognised as the Best Sportswoman in China in a sport that is not included in the Olympic programme.

Hou recently won the first-ever Chinese Female Professional chess tournament held in Wuxi, Jiangsu in China in April with a highly impressive score of 9/11. However, she had disappointing result in Asian Individual, where playing in the Open section, she ended 33rd in Mashhad, Iran.

Hou hails from Xinghua, which is famous for holding top level Chinese individual chess tournaments for the past three years. The town has two women grandmasters, eight national champions and over 10,000 playing youngsters live here.

According to Susan Polgar, one of the strongest-ever women's players, but now retired, Hou is preparing for her match against Humpy and all these Open events are part of her larger plan.

This will be India's first ever Category 17 chess tournament with a unique group of six grandmasters playing in a double round robin event from June 21 to July 2.

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