13. Hou Yifan

The 4 time Women's World Chess Champion and the 2nd highest rated female player of all time, Hou Yifan started playing at the age of 5 with the help of her chess mentor IM Tong Yuanming.<br/>At 13 became the Chinese Women's Champion. She earned the Grandmaster title at 14yrs 6mo 2 days (one of 39 women in the world to ever do so). At 16 she became the Women's World Champion.<br/>She has been regarded as being 'leaps and bounds' ahead of her competition - winning her 4 Women's World Championships with a score of 10 win - 0 losses - 14 draws.<br/>She has been the Women's World Number one player since September 2015 - more than 50 points ahead of second place.<br/>In 2018 - she semi retired to focus on her studies - becoming a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and later becoming the youngest full professor at Shenzhen university at the age of 26. <br/>Even being so far advanced - she only treats chess as a hobby, not a career.<br/>She stated in 2018 - "I want to be the best, but I also want to have a life". <br/><br/>This week's game, we are looking at a game from 2017 at the Gibraltar Masters - <br/>Now, if we're ready - let's begin.<br/><br/>Hou Yifan vs Babu Lalith - <br/>1. g4 d5 2. f3 e5 3. d3 Qh4+ 4. Kd2 h5 5. h3 hxg4 0-1<br/><br/>https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1860931<br/><br/>..........<br/><br/>Yes, she did resign on move 5. <br/>Yes, this is a real rated tournament game. <br/>Why would the reigning World Champion do this? <br/>The same reason Bobby Fischer didn't play game one in 1972 and Carlsen resigned on move 2 against Neimann - to make a statement. <br/><br/>At the time, she was playing in a co-ed tournament, but was upset with her pairings. <br/>In the United States - 85% of chess players are male, 15% are female. FIDE reports theirs around 10-11%. <br/>Generally - there are open tournaments and women only tournaments. <br/>This tournament was an open tournament, but Yifan was paired against women in 7 of her 9 rounds. <br/>There were 255 players in the tournament and men outnumbered women 4 to 1.<br/>There is quite a lot of controversy and tension in the game between the genders from lopsided pairings, representation disparities, hijab wearing requirements, the debate on women's titles, and general sexism - we as a society - need to be better finiding solutions to these issues.  <br/>Yifan is a brilliant player and she deserves all the credit -and then some - that she has earned. <br/>Here is one game where she shows that off from 2014 - the same year she won her GM title.<br/><br/>Hou Yifan vs Marsel Efroimski 2014 -  <br/><br/>1. c4 e5 2. g3 Nf6 3. Bg2 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. Nc3 Nb6 6. Nf3<br/>Nc6 7. Rb1 a5 8. d3 Be7 9. O-O Be6 10. Be3 O-O 11. Rc1 Nd5<br/>12. Nxd5 Bxd5 13. Qa4 Rb8 14. Qb5 Re8 15. Nxe5 Bxa2 16. Nxc6<br/>bxc6 17. Qxa5 Rxb2 18. Bxc6 Bb4 19. Qa7 Rf8 20. Bf3 Bd5<br/>21. Qd4 1-0<br/><br/>https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1983515<br/><br/>..........................<br/><br/><br/>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hou_Yifan<br/><br/>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydUOUuseGlw<br/><br/>http://cassidynoble.com/<br/><br/>