The Swiss Miss

John Henderson • Aug 28, 2017

With our extensive coverage of the 5th Sinquefield Cup and the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz tournament over the past few weeks, it’s now time to play ‘catch up’ with all the other chess news from around the world – and none more so than the standout performance from Chinese star Hou Yifan, who in early August claimed an historic outright victory at the 50th Biel International Chess Festival in Switzerland.


Seeded only seventh, Hou turned in a true Judit Polgar-like performance to take outright first place in a field that included nine top male players – and among the field of prominent grandmasters was also Ruslan Ponomariov, a former Fide knockout world champion, and Peter Leko, who came within one game of being crowned world champion against Vladimir Kramnik in 2004.


Two years ago, Hou – quite disillusioned by Fide’s running of the Women’s World Championship cycle – opted not to defend her world title, turning her back on the women’s game, and focusing all her energies instead on playing the strongest available opposition. The 23-year-old Chinese GM has had up-and-down results but she’s stuck to it, despite opposition from the Chinese Federation.


Hou’s victory at Biel must now come as a terrific validation. She top-scored on 6.5/9, and in the process turned in a performance rating of 2810. Her only loss was to India’s #2, Pentala Harikrishna, and her ‘victims’ included David Navara and two former candidates in Alexander Morozevich and Rafael Vaganian.


And on the back of her glass ceiling cracking performance in Biel, Hou now ranks 72nd in the world. And with it, she now joins a very select club, with only two other women in the annals having previously ranked higher: the redoubtable Judit Polgar and Maia Chiburdanidze, the 1980s Soviet-era Women’s World champion.



Final standings
1. Hou Yifan (China) 6.5/9; 2. Etienne Bacrot (France) 6; 3. Pentala Harikrishna (India) 5.5; 4-7. Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine), Peter Leko (Hungary), Nico Georgiadis (Switzerland), Alexander Morozevich (Russia) 5; 8. David Navara (Czech Rep.) 4; 9. Rafael Vaganian (Armenia); 10. Noël Studer (Switzerland) 1.


GM Rafael Vaganian – GM Hou Yifan
50th Biel International Festival GM, (8)

Yusupov-Rubinstein Syste
m1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.e3 b6 4.Bd3 Bb7 5.0-0 d5 6.b3 Bd6 7.Bb2 0-0 8.Ne5 c5 9.Qe2 Nc6 10.a3 Rc8 11.Nd2 Ne7 12.Rad1 Qc7 13.c4 Ne4 14.cxd5 Nxd2 15.Rxd2 Bxd Rather than recapturing with the pawn, Hou wants to open lines for her pieces. 16.Qh5 f5! Much stronger than …g6, as it locks Vaganian’s white-squared bishop out of the attack and stops e4 from being played. 17.Nc4 cxd4 18.Bxd4 Ng6 19.Nxd6 Qxd6 20.b4 Vaganian thinks his bishop-pair offers him a slight edge – but he’s overlooked a big tactic that turns the position firmly in Hou’s direction. 20…Bxg2!! (see diagram) This is the sort of bolt out of the blue that can physically rock you back in your chair! Truth told, Vaganian simply must have missed this shot – but the ever-alert Hou was quick off the mark to spot it. 21.Kxg2 Qxd4! The second tactical blow is the decider, as Vaganian discovers that he’s doomed to defend a bad ending. 22.Qxg6?! The alternatives, though marginally better, fared no better. If 22.Qxf5 Rxf5 23.exd4 Nf4+ 24.Kh1 Rff8! 25.Be4 Rc3 26.Ra1 Rfc8 and although the material is equal, Black’s active pieces (not to mention the wonderful knight on f4, with threats of a back-rank mate) will pick off a pawn and then the game. And, of course, if 22.exd4 Nf4+ 23.Kf3 Nxh5 the fork has simply won a pawn, with the Black knight heading to f6 to blockade the d5 square before targeting the isolated d4 pawn. 22…Qd5+ 23.e4 fxe4 24.Qxe4 Wishful thinking perhaps, but Vaganian hopes his queen and bishop hitting h7 might hold some slim hopes of saving the game – but Hou Yifan has it all worked out, as she clinically forces the exchange of queens for an easy win. 24…Qg5+ 25.Kh1 Qxd2 26.Qxh7+ Kf7 27.Qg6+ Unfortunately for Vaganian, if 27.Rg1 Qh6! 28.Qe4 Rc1 easily liquidates the position and eliminates any slim hopes of possibly saving the game. 27…Ke7 28.Qxg7+ Rf7 29.Qd4 Qf4 30.Qxf4 Rxf4 31.f3 Rd4! The final classy touch from Hou – the rook activates itself before Vaganian can attempt to cut it off with Be4. Now he’s at the mercy of Hou’s marauding rooks that will either pick off the queenside pawns or mate the White king. 32.Be4 Rd2 33.Rg1 Rc3 0-15

The 42 Paradox

By John B. Henderson • 02 Oct, 2023
Well, well, well. After rampaging his way through many of the finals and opponents throughout the 2023 Champions Chess Tour, Magnus Carlsen’s “final boss” reign came to a screeching halt in what proved to be an enthralling AI Cup Grand Final on Friday, as the favourite was beaten not once but in three games, and over two matches, by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who sensationally grabbed the last remaining spot in the Champions Tour Final in December. Earlier, Carlsen had defeated MVL in the final of the winners’ bracket, before the Frenchman gained the right to a rematch in the double-elimination contest by beating Ian Nepomniachtchi in the final of the losers’ bracket. In the Grand Final, buoyed up and firing on all cylinders, MVL beat Carlsen by a 2½-1½ score.

We'll Meet Again

By John B. Henderson • 29 Sep, 2023
The self-proclaimed “final boss of chess” does what the final boss of chess does best of all: Magnus Carlsen beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the final of the AI Cup winners’ bracket, the sixth and final leg of the 2023 Champions Chess Tour regular season, to reach yet another Grand Final in the novel double-elimination contest. But it wasn’t without an epic bare-knuckle street fight from both players, as MVL proved to be a worthy opponent for what looked to be an unstoppable Carlsen, who narrowly prevailed in the Armageddon to take the match 3-2. "This is the sort of thing that happens when you play Sicilians in every game," said a magnanimous Carlsen in victory after four fighting Sicilians left the match tied at 2-2.

Tiers For Fears

By John B. Henderson • 27 Sep, 2023
Fans were treated to arguably the greatest online rivalry in chess history recently, with the Chess.com Speed Chess Championship Grand Final showdown between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura seeing the Norwegian narrowly snatch victory by a solitary win to end the American speed maven’s hopes of a sixth successive victory. But Carlsen’s narrow win left the salivating fans feeling they’d been denied seeing this epic gladiatorial speed contest going into overtime - but they didn’t have to wait long for the rivalry redux, as a couple of days later, both Carlsen and Nakamura went head-to-head yet again in the opening day of the AI Cup, the sixth and final leg of the 2023 Champions Chess Tour regular season.

Bossing It

By John B. Henderson • 25 Sep, 2023
Magnus Carlsen more than lived up to his self-proclamation of being “The Final Boss of Chess” with a revenge-is-sweet narrow victory over fellow chess influencer Hikaru Nakamura, as he denied his long-time arch-rival a sixth successive Chess.com Speed Chess Championship title last Friday. Last year, it was Nakamura who narrowly squeaked home by one point - this time, in yet another thrilling match consisting of three different speed limits - 5+1, 3+1 and 1+1 (more commonly known as ‘bullet’) - between the two speed titans, it again ended with the same scoreline, though this time seeing Carlsen triumph by a solitary win after two pulsating hours of thrilling play, as he took the $150,000 2023 Speed Chess Championship presented by Coinbase, 13.5-12.5.

Death, Taxes, Magnus & Hikaru

By John B. Henderson • 22 Sep, 2023
With a smorgasbord of online chess events out there now, the granddaddy of them all is surely the Chess.com Speed Chess Championship , with a $150,000 prize fund that determines just who is the best blitz and bullet players. It has become the perennial fan-favourite with arguably the best viewing experience - and the fans are set for yet another spectacular finale later today, as the two rivals who dominate the roll of honour, Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura, get set for another explosive showdown in the 2023 final. Friday’s final and commentary, free to view, starts at 14:00 ET (11:00 PT; 20:00 CEST; 23:30 IST) on Chess.com. Carlsen and Nakamura have won each edition since the inaugural Speed Chess Championship event in 2016 - Carlsen won the first two speed titles before taking a hiatus, only for Nakamura to rule the roost, winning four more times.

A Messi Kid

By John B. Henderson • 19 Sep, 2023
India today is a land of amazing young talents and prospects in chess, with the country seemingly having a never-ending production line of prodigies rolling off the factory conveyor belt. But for some countries, such as Argentina, prodigies only seem to come around with all the regularity of Halley’s Comet . One of the first notable post-war chess prodigies was Oscar Panno from Buenos Aires, who became the first world-class player born in South America. In 1953, at the age of 17, he became only the second World Junior Champion , having won the coveted youth title ahead of a strong cadre of future elite-level Grandmasters such as Boris Ivkov (who in 1951 was crowned the first World Junior Ch), Bent Larsen, and Fredrik Olafsson.

The Great Rook 'n' Roll Swindle

By John B. Henderson • 14 Sep, 2023
“Chess is a cruel game. We all know that feeling when your position has gone awry and everything seems hopeless. You feel like resigning. But don’t give up! This is precisely the moment to switch to swindle mode. Master the art of provoking errors and you will be able to turn the tables and escape with a draw or sometimes even steal the full point!” So wrote David Smerdon, an Australian chess grandmaster and one of his country’s leading behavioural economists, on the back cover of his witty and wickedly entertaining, not to mention the much-lauded and deserving 2020 ECF Book of the Year winner, The Complete Chess Swindler (New in Chess).

No Country For Young Men

By John B. Henderson • 11 Sep, 2023
With the top teenage talents being overshadowed in the Tata Steel Chess India Rapid in Kolkata by a dominant performance from seasoned veteran Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, there were hopes of a homeland comeback in the follow-on Blitz tournament - and one looked to be on the cards, only for another “old guy”, this time Alexander Grischuk, crashing the teenage party by capturing the second, even faster speed title. Early doors, all eyes were firmly on Rameshbabu “Pragg” Praggnanandhaa, with his flying start of a perfect 5/5 on the opening day of the two-day double-round contest. But that was as good as it got for the 18-year-old Candidate-qualifier, who could only finish the day on 6.5/9, and despite being the sole leader, he held what looked a very slender half-point lead over nearest rivals Santosh Vidit and Grischuk, ominously the only unbeaten player.

My Indian Summer

By John B. Henderson • 08 Sep, 2023
The past couple of years have proved to be a major one for India - not only a global player with world leaders descending this week in New Delhi for the G20 Summit and recently successfully landing a spacecraft on the moon but now also a fully-fledged chess superpower, with many exciting young talents set to make the country a dominant force for the foreseeable future. Many would even speculate that Indian Chess could well turn into a hegemony, in much the same way as the Soviets dominated the chess scene in the 1945 post-war period until its collapse and ultimate dissolution in 1991. The latest big chess tournament to be held in India coincides with the G20, with the fifth Tata Steel Chess India Rapid & Blitz - a spinoff from the larger Dutch super-tournament, the Tata Steel Chess Masters in Wijk aan Zee - taking place 5-9 September in Kolkata.

Me & The Kids

By John B. Henderson • 04 Sep, 2023
The fifth and latest leg of the Champions Chess Tour , the Julius Baer Generations Cup more than lived up to its name with the world No.1, Magnus Carlsen, after overpowering Alireza Firouzja in the winners’ final, to effortlessly cruise his way into the Grand Final, declaring: “It’s just me against the kids now!” After three clean kills that included a brace of back-to-back 2½-½ victories over Iranian Amin Tabatabaei and his old title foe Caruana, Carlsen proceeded to sweep Firouzja 3-0 to reach the Grand Final of the contest - but it wasn’t lost on the “old man” that non of his old rivals were left in the competition, and that meant that Denis Lazavik (16), Nodirbek Abdusattorov (18), and Firouzja (20) were the only three left standing to see who would go forward to meet him in the Grand Final.
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