Raymond Keene

Hou dares wins

issue 02 September 2017

Hou Yifan, the leading female grandmaster, is beginning to place strain on Judit Polgar’s record as the best woman chess player ever. At the Biel Grandmaster tournament, Hou seized first prize ahead of a phalanx of elite male rivals. Her win against the veteran grandmaster Rafael Vaganian (see below) was outstanding.
 
There have been occasional controversies, including one in which our own Nigel Short once became embroiled, about the relative powers of the male and female brain. I incline to the view of Professor Tony Buzan, inventor of Mind Maps and originator of the world memory championships, that the differences hover somewhere between negligible and nonexistent, and that any reticence on the part of female chess practitioners to aspire to the supreme laurels is grounded in culture, not anatomy.
 
Vaganian-Hou Yifan: Biel 2017
(see diagram 1)
 
20 … Bxg2 This is the start of a brilliant combination from Hou Yifan. 21 Kxg2 Qxd4 This is the immediate point.






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