Hou Yifan, is the Chinese chess prodigy who was the
finalist in FIDE World Women Chess Championship and became the youngest ever
female in history (just at the age of 14 years 6 months) to attain the title of
Grandmaster.
Her debut was winning medals in some youth
championships in under10 category but she was noticed in the international
arena during Three Arrows Cup in San Jinan thanks to her amazing results
against a higher rated opposition. At the age of 12, she became the youngest
ever player to participate in the FIDE Women's World Championship in
Yekaterinburg and the Chess Olympiad in Turin. Next year, she became the
youngest Chinese Women's Champion and she was invited to the Corus Wijk aan Zee
C Group where she took the fifth place while last year she played in B Group
where most of the players being Grandmasters rated above 2600 and in the top
100 of FIDE rating list and she scored -1. During 2008, she visited Turkey twice, in the first
one winning the Atatürk Women Masters Tournament. In the second one she shared
the third place in the open category of World Junior Championship (the first
female player to do that) which was held in Gaziantep. In the
most recent (January 2009) FIDE rating list, she is ranked the no. 1 girl
player and the no. 3 female player in the world. She is also ranked no. 18
junior player, and the highest-ranked 14-year-old of either sex.
