Peking University (BA) St Hilda's College, Oxford (MPP)
Country
China
Title
Grandmaster (2008)
Women's World Champion
2010–2012 2013–2015 2016–2017
FIDE rating
2632 (April 2024)
Peak rating
2686 (March 2015)
Peak ranking
No. 55 (May 2015)
Chess medals
Representing China
Asian Games
2022 Hangzhou
Women's team
2010 Guangzhou
Women's Individual
2010 Guangzhou
Women's Team
2022 Hangzhou
Women's Individual
Chinese name
Chinese
侯逸凡
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin
Hóu Yìfán
Wade–Giles
Hou I-Fan
IPA
[xǒʊ îfǎn]
Yue: Cantonese
Yale Romanization
Haùh jaht fàahn
Jyutping
Hau4 jat6 faan4
IPA
[hɐ̏ujɐ̀tfȁːn]
Southern Min
Hokkien POJ
Hâu E̍k-hōan
Hou Yifan (Chinese: 侯逸凡; pinyin: Hóu Yìfánpronunciationⓘ; born 27 February 1994)[1][2][3] is a Chinese chess grandmaster, four-time Women's World Chess Champion and the second highest rated female player of all time.[4] A chess prodigy, she was the youngest female player ever to qualify for the title of grandmaster (at the age of 14 years, 6 months, 16 days) and the youngest ever to win the Women's World Chess Championship (at age 16).
At the age of 12, Hou became the youngest player ever to participate in the Women's World Championship (Yekaterinburg 2006) and the Chess Olympiad (Torino 2006).[5] In June 2007, she became the youngest Chinese Women's Champion ever. She achieved the titles of Woman FIDE Master in January 2004, Woman Grandmaster in January 2007, and Grandmaster in August 2008. In 2010, she won the 2010 Women's World Championship in Hatay, Turkey at age 16. She won the next three championships in which the title was decided by a match (in 2011, 2013 and 2016, with a total of ten wins to zero losses and fourteen draws against three different opponents), but was either eliminated early or she declined to participate in the championships in which the title was decided by a knockout tournament (in 2012, 2015 and 2017).
Hou was the third woman ever to be rated among the world's top 100 players (2014–16 and 2017–22), after Maia Chiburdanidze and Judit Polgár. She is widely regarded as the best active female chess player, "leaps and bounds" ahead of her competitors.[6] As of September 2023,[update] she has been the No. 1 ranked woman in the world since September 2015 and is 68 points ahead of the No. 2 ranked Ju Wenjun.[7] She was named in the BBC's 100 Women programme in 2017.[8] She has been semi-retired since 2018, and became a professor at Shenzhen University in 2020, at the age of 26.[4]
^Hou Yifan Archived 2012-09-06 at archive.today New in Chess NICBase Online Info.
^侯逸凡 (in Simplified Chinese). China Chess League. 13 June 2006. Archived from the original on 4 January 2009. Retrieved 9 September 2008.
^"chesspawn.net". chesspawn.net. Archived from the original on 14 March 2012. Retrieved 25 April 2014.
^ abChess: Hou Yifan, No 1 woman and professor at 26, loses in online return, Leonard Barden, The Guardian, 17 July 2020
HouYifan (Chinese: 侯逸凡; pinyin: HóuYìfán pronunciation; born 27 February 1994) is a Chinese chess grandmaster, four-time Women's World Chess Champion...
accessed 21 September 2014 ChessBase News: HouYifan, Short win Gibraltar, Short wins play=off ChessBase News: HouYifan beats Judit Polgar in an historic encounter...
previous record by three months (this record was subsequently broken by HouYifan in 2008). In October 2007, Humpy became the second female player, after...
title is no longer indicative of the upper echelon of chess overall, HouYifan has been the only player since 2000 to join Judit Polgár and Maia Chiburdanidze...
fourth woman to reach a rating of 2600 after Judit Polgár, Koneru, and HouYifan. Following the tournament, she reached a career-best ranking of No. 197...
She is the No. 3 ranked woman in the world by FIDE rating behind only HouYifan and Koneru Humpy. With a peak rating of 2611, she is also the fourth-highest...
former world champions, such as Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik, HouYifan, Mariya Muzychuk and Alexandra Kosteniuk, as well as World Championships...
2016 during the 42nd Chess Olympiad in Baku. She lost her title against HouYifan in the Women's World Chess Championship 2016 by 3–6. In 2017 she refused...
players are from China, as is the world's highest rated woman player, HouYifan. The current World chess champion Ding Liren and Women's World chess champion...
with a score of 6½/9 points, ahead of the then women's world champion HouYifan. In October 2011 she took the second place at the Nalchik stage of the...
Polgar Hungary 21 years 1991 Judit Polgár Hungary 15 years, 4 months 2002 Humpy Koneru India 15 years, 1 month 2008 HouYifan China 14 years, 6 months...
Yaroslavl". Chessdom. 25 August 2014. McGourty, Colin (17 December 2014). "HouYifan and Nepomniachtchi Basque in glory". Chess24. "Ian Nepomniachtchi dominates...
increase in the number of women to earn the GM title. Among these new GMs, HouYifan has been the only other woman to reach the overall top 100 and regularly...
Championship Under 10 group in 2004, tying with future Women's World Champion HouYifan and top Grandmaster Yu Yangyi. In 2019, he won the Sydney International...
Ukraine's best female chess player of 2012. She lost her title against HouYifan in the Women's World Chess Championship 2013. List of Jewish chess players...
Chess Championship 2008, beating in the final the young Chinese prodigy HouYifan with a score of 2½–1½. Later in the same year, she won the women's individual...
top-ranked blitz player and also the top-ranked classical chess player is HouYifan, also from China. The defending Women's World Rapid Chess Champion is...
also trained former women's world champion and grandmaster HouYifan. Chuchelov was Hou's second in the Women's World Chess Championship 2016. "Chuchelov...
Women's World Chess Championship 2016 between Mariya Muzychuk and HouYifan, won by HouYifan, and the Candidates Tournament, won by Sergey Karjakin, who challenged...
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