Hou Yifan – the youngest female grandmaster in history

Grandmaster Hou Yifan

Hou Yifan was born on February 27, 1994, in Xinghua, China. Her name, which is written 侯逸凡 in Chinese characters and Hóu Yìfán in Pinyin, is pronounced "Ho-ee? Fan". Chinese is a tonal language with pitch being used to distinguish different meanings. So you have to speak the first two syllables with a rising ton, as if you were asking a question. Also: friends call her Yifan, which is the equivalent of our first names.

In November 2008 Hou became the youngest ever female in history to qualify for the title of grandmaster. She did this at the age of 14 years 6 months 2 days, breaking the previous records set by Judit Polgar (15y 4m 28d) and Koneru Humpy (15y 1m 27d). We have added Hou to our list of chess prodigies, which now looks like this:

Youngest grandmasters in history

We must once again draw your attention to one of our first encounters with Hou Yifan. This was at the Three Arrows Cup in 2005, when the eleven-year-old untitled player, rated 2158, came equal 4-5th and drew the attention of our reporter.

At the time Ali Nihat Yazici, President of the Turkish Chess Federation, who was sending us pictures and stories from Jinan, wrote:

Our precognitive friend Ali Nihat got it right. Yifan is now the youngest GM in the world, and the youngest female GM in history. You can see her progress in the following chart:

Here are some pictures of the talented young lady:

Yifan portrayed by Fred Lucas at the Wijk aan Zee tournament in January this
year, where she had a performance of 2600 in the B Group

Exhausted: during the Atatürk Women's Tournament in Istanbul in March 2008...

... and in the final round. Hou won the tournament, a full point ahead of GM Pia Cramling

Yifan at the Women's World Championship in Nalchik, September 2008,
where she lost narrowly in the final to Russian GM Alexandra Kosteniuk

The start of the final game in the Women's World Championship in Nalchik

Hou Yifan in Wijk aan Zee 2007, where she came fifth in the C Group

At the Chess Olympiad in Turin in 2006

Incidentally in the latest FIDE awards list tells us that two other young ladies have received the full GM title as well: Monika Socko of Poland und Nana Dzagnidze of Georgia. There are currently nineteen female players who hold the GM title (source: Wikipedia):

Nona Gaprindashvili, the first female grandmaster, got her title for being a long-standing women's world champion. The first female to earn the title with full GM norms was Zsuzsa (Susan) Polgar in 1991.