Hou Yifan poised to win the Biel GM tournament

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Leonard Barden
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Hou Yifan poised to win the Biel GM tournament

Post by Leonard Barden » Wed Aug 02, 2017 1:15 pm

She was level with Harikrishna on 5.5/8 at the start of this morning's final round, but the Indian has just blundered badly and lost to Bacrot, while Hou, still in play, has a clear edge, though not yet definitely winning, against the local master Georgiadis. Comp evaluation is +0.86 and Georgiadis has 18 moves to make in 10 minutes.

Seems at worst that Hou should tie on 6/9 with Bacrot and Morozevich ahead of Leko, Harikrishna, Navara and Ponomariov and she has serious chances for 6.5, an outright win and a career-best performance.

It's a long way from 1 g4 in the final round at Gibraltar.......

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Hou Yifan poised to win the Biel GM tournament

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Wed Aug 02, 2017 1:17 pm

Impressive. What was Judit Polgar's best performance in an equivalent event?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r

Polgar: "She has won or shared first in the chess tournaments of Hastings 1993, Madrid 1994, León 1996, U.S. Open 1998, Hoogeveen 1999, Sigeman & Co 2000, Japfa 2000, and the Najdorf Memorial 2000."

EDIT: Hou Yifan's done it! Congratulations on an excellent result.

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Hou Yifan poised to win the Biel GM tournament

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Wed Aug 02, 2017 1:58 pm

Winning this tournament as seventh seed is impressive, but is it that strong a tournament? There were two IMs taking part, so not an all-GM supertournament. There were 'only' three GMs rated over 2700. Does anyone know what 'category' it was, if that sort of thing is still calculated? TPR for Hou Yifan of 2810.

EDIT: Average ELO of 2646. Hence category XVI (16).

[for comparison, current Sinquefield Cup is average ELO of 2788 and Category XXII (22)]

NickFaulks
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Re: Hou Yifan poised to win the Biel GM tournament

Post by NickFaulks » Wed Aug 02, 2017 2:17 pm

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:TPR for Hou Yifan of 2810.
That's good enough for me but you're right, this is far from the Linares style supertournament that Judit never managed to win.
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NickFaulks
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Re: Hou Yifan poised to win the Biel GM tournament

Post by NickFaulks » Wed Aug 02, 2017 2:24 pm

Just played through the Harikrishna game. Looks like he's not an early morning player.
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Matt Mackenzie
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Re: Hou Yifan poised to win the Biel GM tournament

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Wed Aug 02, 2017 6:19 pm

Superb achievement for Hou even if it wasn't the ultimate supertournament. Sad to see Vaganyan so outclassed, though.
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