The cause célèbre at the Tradewise tournament in Gibraltar, which finished earlier this month, was the extraordinary protest by Hou Yifan, the reigning women’s world champion, against having to play seven female opponents in ten rounds.
In the tenth and final round she made her complaint manifest by deliberately throwing the game in just five moves. The sensational outburst went as follows: (Hou Yifan-Babu Lalith, Gibraltar 2017) 1 g4 d5 2 f3 e5 3 d3 Qh4+ 4 Kd2 h5 5 h3 hxg4 White resigns.
The Gibraltar organisers reacted with indignation, pointing out that the pairings for their event are calculated by a well-established computer program which excludes any bias.
Ironically, the Tradewise tournament has gone out of its way since its inception 15 years ago to promote women’s chess. In this respect, the tournament has been an unwitting victim of its own success, helping to create a cadre of powerful female players, whose strength, in terms of ratings, rankings and titles, should quite cancel out any issues concerning the gender of any players’ opponents.
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