Women's WCh. G9: Hou Yifan wins and is champion

2016 Women's World Chess Championship

The Women’s World Chess Championship Match 2016 between the current World Champion Mariya Muzychuk of Ukraine and Challenger Hou Yifan of China (former World Champion 2010-2012, 2013-2015) takes place in Lviv, Ukraine, on March 1-18, 2016. The first game is scheduled to start at 3 pm local time on 2nd of March 2016. You can watch the games live in our broadcast window at the bottom of this page.

Game nine

Photos by Vitaliy Hrabar for the official site

It was the ultimate do-or-die situation for title-holder Mariya Muzychuk, since anything less than a win meant surrendering the title to the challenger and former champion Hou Yifan. The worst part is that even if she somehow did pull off a win, she would face the exact same scenario in the tenth game.

The Ukrainian came with her game face on, in every sense of the term. There would be no doldrums, looks of resignation or tension. She had fought her way to the title magnificently last year, knew full well she was the underdog in this fight, and had done everything in her power to fight for the title. In spite of the final score of a very decisive 6.0-3.0 in favor of Hou Yifan, it bears remembering where Muzychuk came from, and how far she has come.

A jocular Mariya goes through the security check

For many years she had been very much in the shadow of her holder sister Anna, whose results exceeded hers by a healthy margin. Such a shadow of an older sibling can weigh heavily sometimes, no matter how compassionate and generous that sibling might be. Her climb up the Elo ladder was slow in the past years, but the win of the championship seems to have galvanized her, not only in motivation, but self-belief, and she has not only accrued over 40 Elo since then, but produced some fantastic results that did credit to her title and newfound self-confidence.  Her amazing first board result in the European Team Championship was one example.

A focused Muzychuk faces the reality of her situation

She still arrived in this match outgunned by a player whose precociousness is rivaled by only one other female player in history, but held on and fought hard with dignity. She produced situations that put her opponent in danger, and should she work hard and continue to grow, may yet convert them to a full point in future encounters. Whatever the result, she did herself proud.

No less good-humored (with good reason) is Hou Yifan before game nine

As to the new champion, Hou Yifan, what can one say? She was the favorite and everyone knew it, but sometimes that is as much a curse as a blessing, since the weight of expectations can be a heavy burden to bear. She lived up to them though, fighting on the home turf of her opponent, yet keeping good cheer and grace throughout. She has regained her title in the match secured by the strange cycle that FIDE has erected for the Women’s World Championship. Her status as the no. 1 female in activity is not in doubt, and what is left now is for her to pursue her goal of 2700 Elo that we all know she is capable of.

She came with a mission and fulfiled it

Game nine annotated by GM Adrian Mikhalchishin

Current standings

Schedule

All games start at 3 p.m. local time, which is an hour ahead of European time, two ahead of Britain, and seven ahead of New York. You can find the starting time at your location here.

Women's World Chess Championship 2016 live broadcast

Watch it live on Playchess!

When the games are running, clicking on the above link will take you to our live broadcast. It is free and open to all – as a Premium Account member you have access to the Live Book, Chat, chess engine analysis – all in your browser, on a notebook, tablet or even your smartphone. And the Let's Check function will show you what the most powerful computers in the world think of the current position, as each move is being played.

In the live broadcast below, on the side of each board is an evaluation meter, showing you which side is better. The small "x" button on the top right of each board will remove it from the broadcast. If you remove two games you will have four larger boards. Removing four will give you two even larger boards, and removing five will give you just one very large board. Refresh the page (Ctrl-R) to return to the six most popular boards.

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Links Official tournament site Download all games in PGN The games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the 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.