Hou Yifan wins Monaco by two points

Hou Yifan wins Monaco Womens' Grand Prix

The first leg of FIDE Grand Prix, which was held in Monte Carlo, came to an end on the 15th of October with a resounding victory for Hou Yifan. The Chinese girl simply crushed the competition, and won with an entire two point margin over the joint second placed Maria Muzychuk and Humpy Koneru. This result once again proves that Hou Yifan is in a different league altogether, compared to the other female players.

Hou Yifan earned 160 Grand Prix points (120+40 bonus) and €10,000 prize money

The final crosstable, automatically generated by the computer. Here are the official final rankings:

The previous report covered the tournament until the eighth round. At that point the tournament was still quite closely contested between Hou Yifan, who was on 6.5/8, and Mariya Muzychuk, who was just a half point behind her on 6.0/8. The Chinese GM managed to win her ninth round game against Natalia Zhukova, while Mariya could only manage a draw with Natalija Pogonina. This meant that Hou Yifan had a full point lead over her Ukrainian rival. But everything could change in the tenth round as both of them were up against each other.

Mariya Muzychuk – Hou Yifan, a rehearsal of their upcoming World Championship match in March 2016:
Making the first ceremonial move is Agnès Puons, Manager of Human Resources at the casino Bains de Mer

Check out the post-game press conference where the players speak about their upcoming World
Championship match and how financially attractive it is to be a chess player [7:30 min into the clip]

If you look closely at the above game, you will see how Hou Yifan wonderfully kept control on the d4 square with …Nxf3,…Ne5-c6 and later e7-e5. I wonder if she knew the following classic:

Tigran Petrosian – Florian Gheorghiu, Moscow 1967

It’s White’s (Petrosian’s) turn to play. How did iron Tigran continue?

We don't know if Yifan knows her classics or not, but she definitely gets the job done!

With this tournament victory Hou Yifan gained eleven Elo points and has a classical live rating of 2683, which is exactly 100 points more than number two Koneru Humpy, currently at 2583. Her next aim will definitely be crossing the 2700 barrier and then 2735, which was Judit Polgar’s peak rating.

The current World Champion Mariya Muzychuk had a great event and ended with the second place,
a score of plus three, and 13 points of rating gain. The 23-year-old is now world number five.

On the other hand Anna Muzychuk (above) had a dismal event where she performed below par and lost 15 Elo points. She scored 4.5/11 but despite her bad performance Anna will go back home with a happy feeling thanks to her last round win over Humpy.

Humpy Koneru – Anna Muzychuk, round eleven

Black had been pressing throughout the game. In the above position it was Black (Anna) to play. She has many ways to win but she chose the best one with 42…Bd5+, and after 43.Kg3 (Kf2 d2-+) Rg1+! 44.Bxg1 d2! A nice little deflection – the pawn cannot be stopped. Humpy resigned within a few more moves.

Humpy Koneru receiving her trophy for the third place finish from Zurab Azmaiparashvili,
who is the FIDE Continental President for Europe and President of the European Chess Union

The high point for Humpy in this tournament was defeating Hou Yifan – she was the only one who could do it. Although the last round pawn promotion to a queen (the above game with Anna) must have left a bad taste in Humpy’s mouth, she herself executed something similar against against Alexandra Kosteniuk in the ninth round.

Humpy Koneru – Alexandra Kosteniuk, ninth round

I cannot give this position as a test for you to solve, as White has many ways to win here. The f4 knight cannot be taken right now because f3 hanging. Besides the d6 knight is also en prise. Humpy found a pretty solution starting with 40.Qxd5! Nxd5 41.Bxh6 Rxd6 42.b7! and Kosteniuk resigned, as 42…Rb6 is met with Rxg7 Kh8 Rf7+- The pawn on b7 can only be stopped from queening at the cost of an entire rook.

The top three finishers, Mariya, Yifan and Humpy, with Michel Rapaire, President of the
Monaco Chess Federation (left) and Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, President of the World Chess Federation

Pia Cramling played steady chess and with a score of 6.0/11 finished fourth

Natalija Pogonina finished fifth, but she had better or
winning positions in many of her drawn and lost games

A 50% score for Alexandra Kosteniuk

Antanoeta Stefanova (left) finished sixth and Nana Dzagnidze eighth. The latter managed to limit her rating loss with four consecutive wins in the last four rounds. When Stefanova and Dzagnidze met in the ninth round it seemed like the game would end in a peaceful draw. The double rook endgame after 22 moves was completely equal. But Stefanova misplayed it horribly and lost the game. This reminds us of the game Stefanova-Pogonina which we analyzed in the previous report, where the latter was unable to hold a clearly drawn rook endgame.

Four beautiful ladies at the closing ceremony: Natalia Zhukova,
Antanoeta Stefanova, Almira Skripchenko and the chief arbiter Anastasia Sorokina

Sarasadat Khademalsharieh played one of the toughest tournaments of her life. After three draws at the start she suffered eight defeats in a row. Quite a harrowing event for the Iranian youngster but with such an experience she can only become a stronger chess player.

Beautiful trophies for the top three players

While the tournament was in progress, the Post of Ukraine issued a stamp with the pictures of Mariya and Anna Muzychuk. The pictures are taken from the time when they became World Champions. Mariya became Women’s World Champion in 2015 while Anna won the under 16 world title in 2005.

You need pliers to eat them! Antoaneta Stefanova has lobster for dinner.

The final group picture of players and organisers

The Monaco Grand Prix 2015 comes to an end. It was wonderfully organized. All the players enjoyed the hospitality and Hou Yifan said that she would be happy to return to Monte Carlo casino whenever a tournament was organized there. A special mention must be made about the extremely up-to-date website maintained by the organizers and FIDE, which had excellent pictures, videos and reports uploaded every day.

Hou Yifan has won the previous three Grand Prix cycles in 2009-11, 2011-12 and 2013-14. And now she has started off the 2015-16 season with a bang. Will anybody be able to stop her? We will have to wait until February 2016 when the next Grand Prix leg will be held in Kish, Iran.

Grand Prix Standings

Pictures from the official website

Links Official tournament site Download all games in PGN 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 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.