{"id":11415,"date":"2011-11-28T19:11:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-28T19:11:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-11-28T19:11:00","modified_gmt":"2011-11-28T19:11:00","slug":"17-Year-Old-From-China-Repeats-as-Women-s-Chess-Champ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=11415","title":{"rendered":"17-Year-Old From China Repeats as Women\u2019s Chess Champ"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the growing rivalry between the emerging superpowers China and India, Beijing scored a symbolic victory on Thursday: a Chinese woman won a chess match. The woman, Hou Yifan, 17, easily retained the Women\u2019s World Chess Championship title when she drew the eighth game of a match against Humpy Koneru, the best Indian woman to play the game. The final score of the best-of-10 match was 5.5 points to 2.5 points. Despite the lopsided score, the victory was not as easy as it appeared, Ms. Hou said in a telephone interview from Tirana, Albania, where the match was held. \u201cEvery game was interesting. Both of us had chances,\u201d she said. The difference was that \u201cin the middle games, I caught her mistakes.\u201d<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Ms. Koneru said she was disappointed but not entirely surprised. \u201cI\u2019ve been struggling for the last year with my game,\u201d she said by telephone, adding that her mistakes were caused by a lack of patience at critical points when she played too aggressively. The match was sponsored by Taci Oil International, whose chief executive, Rezart Taci, is president of the Albanian Chess Federation. Ms. Hou will receive 60 percent of the $267,000 prize fund, and Ms. Koneru 40 percent. Ms. Hou became the youngest world champion in history last year when she was 16. The match against Ms. Koneru, 24, was Ms. Hou\u2019s first defense of the title.<\/strong> In some ways, the match was a competition between the world\u2019s two most populous countries as well as the two players. In recent years, the Chinese have dominated women\u2019s chess, but the overall world champion is Viswanathan Anand of India. Ms. Koneru had a chance to make India the holder of the chess world\u2019s most important titles.<\/strong> Though Ms. Hou is ranked No. 3 in the world among women and Ms. Koneru is No. 2, Ms. Hou was a slight favorite because she had beaten Ms. Koneru in the semifinals of last year\u2019s championship as well as the one in 2008.<\/strong> Ms. Hou said she could not explain why she had performed so well against Ms. Koneru. But it may be, Ms. Hou said, that she is more comfortable on the attack and Ms. Koneru is better at long-term strategy. \u201cBut it is not a big difference,\u201d she added.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Though Ms. Hou is the world champion, Judit Polgar, a Hungarian, is the best female player and the only woman to ever be ranked among the world\u2019s top 10. But she does not play in competitions that are limited to women, which is why she has never won the women\u2019s title. One theory about Ms. Polgar\u2019s success is that she has raised the level of her game by competing only against the best players, who happen to be men. Ms. Hou said that she does not know why men have better results at the board, but she speculated that men and women think differently. \u201cTheir feelings are different,\u201d she said. \u201cThey focus on different lines.\u201d Ms. Hou added that she hoped to find time in her competitive schedule to go to college. \u201cI have to know some more things,\u201d she said. \u201cI have to open my eyes to see the whole world.\u201d<\/strong> <\/p>\n

SOURCE<\/a>
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