Sensation: Hou Yifan beats Shirov, leads alone with 7.5/9

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.

"Hou Yifan is a game away from winning the strongest open chess tournament in history" said the tournament press release in caps. "No-one here in Gibraltar at the 2012 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival can quite believe it. A quiet, polite, 17-year old girl, here with her mother, is a game away from winning the strongest Open chess tournament in history. In her wake, some of the best chess players in the world."

Hou Yifan, from China, has beaten one elite player after another in the last few days – including Judit Polgar, the highest ranked female player of all time. At the start of the event Hou Yifan, the reigning women's world champion, was ranked number 25. But nine days later she has beaten four players rated over 2700, and her tournament performance currently stands at a colossal 2892.

On Thursday (2nd February) she faces Shakriyhar Mamedyarov, the cheerful Azeri grandmaster, rated 2747 and number 14 in the world. All eyes will be on Gibraltar to see if Hou Yifan can claim the first prize of £20,000 – as well as the top female award of £10,000. The latter of course is a foregone conclusion.

Top standings after nine rounds

The full table can be found here. There we see Judit Polgar in 17th place and Nana Dzagnidze in 18th, both with 6.0/9 points, the same as Alexei Shirov in 21st and Maxime Vachier Lagrave in 29th. There are also some females in this group: former women's world champions Zhu Chen (27th) and Antoaneta Stefanova (34th), together with Swedish GM Pia Cramling (31st). Note that only the players with 7.0 points are theoretical contenders for first place, and not, as previously stated, those with 6.5 points and more, because whatever the result of Hou-Mamedyarov one of them will have at least eight points.

Octogenarian Viktor Korchnoi (above left) has also chalked up 6.0/9 and is in 42nd place. Koneru Humpy and Anna Muzychuk, Hou Yifan's nearest rivals in the FIDE women's rating list, are at 5.5/9 lower down on the table. They share this slot with Anna's sister Mariya, Natalia Zhukova, Anna Zatonskih, Nadezhda Kosintseva, Soumya Swaminathan, Jovana Vojinovic and Jovanka Houska, with Irina Krush and Lela Javakhishvili following at 5.0/9. It is gratifying to see so many strong female players participating in Gibraltar.

GM Juan Manuel Bellon Lopez (above right), who is Pia Cramling's husband, is also playing in the event and, with 5.0/9 is in 93rd position. That's their daughter Ana in the middle.

So what are the pairings for the final round on Thursday? The ones you will want to watch, on live broadcast on the official site and on Playchess (links at the end of this report) are the following:

Just a stairway down from the Caleta Hotel is the warm and sunny beach

A beach party – no doubt our readers will soon identify all these players for us

Beauties on the beach

Photos: Ray Morris-Hill, Zeljka Malobabic of Monroi

Links Official tournament site Download games from all groups 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.