Hou Yifan Leads Gibraltar With A Round to Go
Hou Yifan's performance at the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival has been nothing short of amazing. In round 9, the penultimate round, Hou defeated Alexey Shirov with Black in a Poisoned Pawn Najdorf, and in the process took a clear lead with 7.5/9. That was her fourth victory over a 2700-rated player in the event (previous victims were Zoltan Almasi, Judit Polgar and Le Quang Liem) and gives her a TPR of 2892!
Still, the job is not done. There are five players within half a point entering the last round: Michael Adams, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Nigel Short, Krishnan Sasikiran and Viktor Bologan; and although Hou will have White she's getting the second-seeded Mamedyarov as her final hurdle. A draw clinches a tie for first, and a win would give her clear first and possibly the greatest tournament performance by a female chess player ever; indeed, one of the all-time great performances in an open event, period.
Reader Comments (4)
I mean Hou's performance has been amazing but I don't think its the best result ever. Does it beat Sofia Polgar's sack of Rome? http://www.sofiapolgar.com/Rome.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
Judit and Susan have had their runs as well.
[DM: Hou's performance doesn't beat the "sack of Rome" by rating, as Hou's TPR was "only" 2872, but I'm a lot more impressed by Hou's beating four 2700s and drawing two more than I am by Sofia Polgar's going 3.5/4 against 2500s and 1/1 against the 2470-rated Palatnik. (Which is not to deny that her result was amazing, especially given that she was only 2300 at the time.)]
Regarding "all-time great performances in an open event", there was also Ivanchuk's 9/10 score in Gibraltar (TPR 2968) last year, and also Short's 8.5/10 (TPR 2883) at the same event. And more recently Jobava's 8.5/9 (TPR 2910) in Milan 2011.
But of course they were all (among the) favorites, and Gibraltar was weaker last time. Hou Yifan was seeded 25th, so another question could be "What's the record for most rating points gained in a single event?"
[DM: I'm sure Sophia Polgar's performance must rank pretty high on that list. How many points did Hou Yifan gain here?]
If my calculations are correct, Hou Yifan gained 33.9 points.
On this list, the surprise win of Matthew Herman (an American, before completely unknown this side of the Atlantic Ocean) in Milan 2010 may rank rather high: He scored 6.5/9 against a rating average about 250 points above his own Elo at the time (2398 vs. 2149) to gain 66.9 points (with a K factor of 15).
[DM: Unknown to me too.]
Hou gained 33 pts which for her level is quite a lot. However, as far as most points gained in single events.... I think amateurs would win that battle. I myself gained 325 points in a single event once. However, for Hou's level, I have seen Ivanchuk, Carlsen, Adams, Nakamura, Aronian and others all gain over 50 points in a single event.
I think its best to just leave Hou's performance at amazing rather than trying to find a single metric.