Hou Yifan beats Judit Polgar in an historic encounter

The 2012 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival is taking place from Tuesday, 24th January to Thursday, 2nd February 2012 at the Caleta Hotel in Gibraltar. The event is the tenth in the series held on the Rock, the second to be sponsored by Tradewise Insurance with technical support by Gibtelecom. The rate of play: 40 moves in 100 minutes plus 20 moves in 50 minutes plus 15 minutes for all remaining moves with 30 seconds per move added from the start.

"There will be an historic clash at the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Masters in Round 7," wrote a bulletin reporter with a sense of tradition ("an historic"). "Women's World Champion Yifan Hou (China), rated 2605, will play white against Judit Polgar (Hungary), 2710, the highest-ever rated woman player in the history of the game. They have never previously met, as Judit doesn't play in women only events, and it is some years since she played in an open tournament."

Hou Yifan and Judit Polgar before their game in round seven. Both had 4.5/6 points.

The handshake...

... and the first moves – Judit goes for an attacking Sicilian...

...and the game soon turns into a Taimanov.

The memorable summit game was annotated for us by GM Alejandro Ramírez Álvarez of Costa Rica

The hero of Gibraltar 2012, with 5.5/7 and a 2823 performance: Chinese
women's world champion Hou Yifan, number two on the women's rating list.

Photos: Zeljka Malobabic © Tradewise Insurance Ltd.

Top standings after seven rounds

Rk.	Ti.	Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	Perf
1	GM	Adams Michael	ENG	2724	6.0	2879.0
2	GM	Hou Yifan	CHN	2605	5.5	2823.0
3	GM	Short Nigel D	ENG	2677	5.5	2810.0
4	GM	Le Quang Liem	VIE	2714	5.5	2803.0
5	GM	Mamedyarov Shakhriyar	AZE	2747	5.5	2795.0
6	GM	Sasikiran Krishnan	IND	2700	5.5	2775.0
7	GM	Almasi Zoltan	HUN	2717	5.5	2768.0
8	GM	Movsesian Sergei	ARM	2700	5.5	2759.0
9	GM	Gopal G N	IND	2566	5.5	2733.0
10	GM	Dzagnidze Nana	GEO	2535	5.5	2708.0
11	GM	Negi Parimarjan	IND	2641	5.5	2700.0
12	GM	Laznicka Viktor	CZE	2704	5.0	2688.0
13	GM	Howell David W L	ENG	2603	5.0	2679.0
14	GM	Svidler Peter	RUS	2749	5.0	2677.0
15	GM	Parligras Mircea-Emilian	ROU	2650	5.0	2672.0
16	GM	Bologan Viktor	MDA	2680	5.0	2662.0
17	GM	El Debs Felipe De Cresce	BRA	2497	5.0	2647.0
18	GM	Shirov Alexei	LAT	2710	5.0	2646.0
18	GM	Koneru Humpy	IND	2589	5.0	2646.0
20	GM	Jussupow Artur	GER	2569	5.0	2617.0
21	GM	Akobian Varuzhan	USA	2617	5.0	2609.0
22	GM	Gustafsson Jan	GER	2643	5.0	2608.0
23	GM	Sutovsky Emil	ISR	2703	5.0	2599.0
24	GM	Zhu Chen	QAT	2472	5.0	2589.0
25	GM	Rapport Richard	HUN	2543	5.0	2582.0
26	GM	Salem A R Saleh	UAE	2505	5.0	2563.0
27	GM	Fier Alexandr	BRA	2603	5.0	2537.0
28	GM	Del Rio De Angelis Salvador	ESP	2531	5.0	2477.0

Links

The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.