Shamkir Chess

[Matt Mackenzie]

Rather a sobering tournament for the world's current top female player.

[Steven DuCharme]

i predict she'll retire before 2017

[NickFaulks]

i predict she'll retire before 2017

I'll take that bet.

[Tim Harding]

Rather a sobering tournament for the world's current top female player.

Disappointing yes, but still after losing 10 FIDE Elo points Hou Yifan remains higher rated than all but four British players, two of whom are semi-retired amateurs. She also remains China's ninth highest rated player which is not bad going.

I doubt she will abandon the quest to surpass Judit Polgar's achievements just yet. Whether she can ever do it is another matter.

I suspect the player who is least happy with his tournament in Shamkir is Karjakin.

[Andrew Bak]

Rather a sobering tournament for the world's current top female player.

Disappointing yes, but still after losing 10 FIDE Elo points Hou Yifan remains higher rated than all but four British players, two of whom are semi-retired amateurs. She also remains China's ninth highest rated player which is not bad going.

I doubt she will abandon the quest to surpass Judit Polgar's achievements just yet. Whether she can ever do it is another matter.

I suspect the player who is least happy with his tournament in Shamkir is Karjakin.

She's very young and still has plenty of time to improve. Maybe once she's finished her studies, she'll be able to do more specific preparation for these type of events.

[Tim Harding]

Rather a sobering tournament for the world's current top female player.

Disappointing yes, but still after losing 10 FIDE Elo points Hou Yifan remains higher rated than all but four British players, two of whom are semi-retired amateurs. She also remains China's ninth highest rated player which is not bad going.

I doubt she will abandon the quest to surpass Judit Polgar's achievements just yet. Whether she can ever do it is another matter.

I suspect the player who is least happy with his tournament in Shamkir is Karjakin.

She's very young and still has plenty of time to improve. Maybe once she's finished her studies, she'll be able to do more specific preparation for these type of events.

I completely agree; because she has been around so long, people may tend to forget that Hou Yifan is a few years younger than Magnus Carlsen etc (same birth year as Anish Giri).

[Jonathan Rogers]

...
I suspect the player who is least happy with his tournament in Shamkir is Karjakin.

Agreed. Even allowing for the "keeping his powder dry" argument, there was nothing to suggest that he has reached a new level in playing strength.

Even Nigel Short managed to do that. A few months before he played Kasparaov in 1993, he beat Kramnik and Anand in the last three rounds of an event in Amsterdam and shared first place with them.