Hou Yifan is a Chinese chess grandmaster, four-time Women's World Chess Champion and the second highest rated female player of all time.
70 Facts About Hou Yifan
2.
At the age of 12, Hou became the youngest player ever to participate in the Women's World Championship and the Chess Olympiad.
3.
Hou Yifan achieved the titles of Woman FIDE Master in January 2004, Woman Grandmaster in January 2007, and Grandmaster in August 2008.
4.
Hou Yifan won the next three championships in which the title was decided by a match, but was either eliminated early or she declined to participate in the championships in which the title was decided by a knockout tournament.
5.
Hou Yifan is the third woman ever to be rated among the world's top 100 players, after Maia Chiburdanidze and Judit Polgar.
6.
Hou Yifan is widely regarded as the best active female chess player, "leaps and bounds" ahead of her competitors.
7.
Hou Yifan was named in the BBC's 100 Women programme in 2017.
8.
Hou Yifan has been semi-retired since 2018, and became a professor at Shenzhen University in 2020, at the age of 26.
9.
Hou Yifan started playing chess regularly at the age of five, but already was fascinated by the game when she was three years old.
10.
Hou Yifan noticed that the little girl liked to stare at glass chess pieces behind the window.
11.
Hou Yifan later bought his daughter her first chess set.
12.
Tong later said that Hou Yifan was an unusual talent, showing "strong confidence, distinguished memory, calculating ability and fast reaction".
13.
Hou Yifan has said that she took up chess because she was fascinated by the pieces.
14.
In 2003, Hou Yifan played against the chief coach of the Chinese national men's and women's chess teams, Ye Jiangchuan, for the first time.
15.
That year, Hou Yifan became the youngest member of the national team and won first place at the World Youth Championship for girls under age ten.
16.
Hou Yifan was admitted to the National Chess Center, an academy for young talented players from all over the country, in Beijing when she was ten, with leading Chinese grandmasters Ye Jiangchuan and Yu Shaoteng as her trainers.
17.
Hou Yifan has attempted to balance chess with life outside of it.
18.
Hou Yifan took a full course load and participated in many extracurricular activities.
19.
Hou Yifan was offered a Rhodes Scholarship, and studied for a Master of Public Policy at St Hilda's College, Oxford with the Blavatnik School of Government.
20.
In 2020, at age 26, Hou Yifan became the youngest ever professor at Shenzhen University where she is a professor at the School of Physical Education, which includes chess in its Sports Training Program.
21.
Hou Yifan made the Olympiad team with the other top finishers, Wang Yu and Shen Yang.
22.
Hou Yifan reached the third round of the Women's World Chess Championship in March 2006.
23.
Hou Yifan started well with two wins out of two, defeating first the Russian IM Nikita Vitiugov and then the 2001 European Champion, GM Emil Sutovsky of Israel.
24.
At the 1st World Women's Team Chess Championship in Ekaterinburg later that month, Hou Yifan was part of the winning China national team that included Zhao Xue, Ruan Lufei, Shen Yang, and Huang Qian.
25.
Hou Yifan was thirteen years old at the time, breaking WGM Qin Kanying's record as the youngest champion.
26.
Hou Yifan played on board two for the team, which finished fourth in the women's tournament.
27.
Hou Yifan participated in the 2007 season of the China Chess League, officially known as the "Torch Real Estate Cup Chinese Chess League Division A".
28.
Hou Yifan scored victories over three grandmasters, including a 23-move win over former World Champion challenger Nigel Short.
29.
Hou Yifan competed in the Chinese Chess League again in the 2008 season, which had eighteen rounds in six different cities from March to August.
30.
Hou Yifan's teammates were GM Bu Xiangzhi, GM Zhao Jun, GM Wen Yang, and WGM Zhang Jilin.
31.
Hou Yifan was the only girl in this section and was the sixteenth seed on the entrant's list.
32.
Hou Yifan competed in the Grandmaster Group B of the 71st Corus chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee from 16 January to 1 February 2009.
33.
Hou Yifan then went on to win the second Grand Prix stage in Shenzhen in September 2011.
34.
Hou Yifan was one of the two female participants in the 128-player single-elimination tournament.
35.
In November Hou Yifan successfully defended her women's world champion title in the Women's World Chess Championship 2011 in Tirana, Albania against Koneru Humpy.
36.
Hou Yifan won 3 games and drew 5 in the ten-game match, winning the title with two games to spare.
37.
Hou Yifan scored five points from the seven games she played.
38.
From April 13 to April 19, Hou Yifan played in the 2012 Bangkok Chess Club open.
39.
At the 40th Chess Olympiad held in Istanbul, Turkey from 27 August to 10 September 2012, Hou Yifan led the Chinese women's chess team to a second place, silver medal finish.
40.
From October 8 to October 17, Hou Yifan played in the European Chess Club Cup 2012 as a member of team, Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo.
41.
Hou Yifan said that she was glad China was moving away from its one-child policy, she would have liked to have had a brother or sister, and she knew of women who had been forced to have abortions.
42.
Hou Yifan was invited to participate in the 2013 Tata Steel Chess Tournament Grandmaster A group in Wijk aan Zee from 12 to 27 January.
43.
Hou Yifan was the lowest Elo rated player at 2603 and seeded 14th.
44.
Hou Yifan competed in the 2013 China Chess Individual Tournament Group A in Xinghua, China from April 16 to the 27th.
45.
Hou Yifan was one of four female participants in the 128-player single-elimination tournament.
46.
Hou Yifan won the first rapid game with white and lost the second with black.
47.
From 19 to 26 October, Hou Yifan played in the European Chess Club Cup 2013 as a member of team, Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo.
48.
From 11 to 22 March, Hou Yifan competed in the 2014 China Chess Individual Tournament Group A in Xinghua, her birthplace.
49.
Hou Yifan again played against the men in the open section rather than in the women's section.
50.
Hou Yifan started with a win over Anish Giri and was tied for second entering the final round and could take joint first place by winning her final game against Pendyala Harikrishna.
51.
From December 11 to 18, Hou Yifan played in the 2014 SportAccord World Mind Games held in Beijing, China.
52.
When Hou Yifan turned twenty one in 2015 she lost her junior status.
53.
Hou Yifan 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.
54.
Hou Yifan played in the 2015 edition of Tata Steel Chess Tournament held from January 15 to 25.
55.
Hou Yifan won the 1st place prize for being the highest scoring female player.
56.
Hou Yifan played in the Hawaii Grandmaster Challenge 2015 in March, a two-day four player quadruple blitz and rapid round robin event.
57.
Hou Yifan played in the Nakhchivan Open 2015 in from May 1 to the 11th.
58.
Hou Yifan played in the 2015 edition of Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting which ran from June 27 to July 5.
59.
Hou Yifan has been chosen as the first FIDE Presidential nominee for Chess World Cup 2015 held in Baku from September 10 to October 5.
60.
Hou Yifan started strongly, going +1 in her first six games before faltering with four losses in the following five games.
61.
Hou Yifan explained her reasons in a Chessbase interview, mainly objecting to the format wherein the Women's World Champion is decided alternately by a knockout tournament and then a match.
62.
Hou Yifan expressed her willingness to participate in the cycle if the format were amended to mirror that of the World Chess Championship.
63.
Hou Yifan later explained that she was upset about being paired against other female players in 7 of her 9 previous games of a Swiss system tournament, despite men far outnumbering women at the tournament.
64.
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.
65.
Hou Yifan reached position 17 in the final standings, and thus was not able to qualify for the Championship.
66.
Hou Yifan declined to defend her title at the Women's World Chess Championship 2017, and as a result forfeited her title.
67.
Hou Yifan finished 5th out of eight players, beating Fabiano Caruana and drawing against Magnus Carlsen after having come close to winning.
68.
Hou Yifan claimed that there are many reasons for the lack of female contenders at the chess top-level.
69.
Hou Yifan says there is a physical aspect to long chess games that might advantage men, and that men generally work harder at chess than women growing up.
70.
Hou Yifan uses Chinese girls as an example and points out that most prefer a balanced life, prioritizing things such as university and family life at the cost of working on chess.