The Women's Master Tournament in Istanbul
: Created:17 Mar 2008 , byPia Cramling, Ekaterina Atalik and Yifan Hou, aged thirteen share the lead with 4 out of 5
Judith Polgar is still clearly the world's number one women's player and the greatest female player so far in the history of chess but there is much interest in the progress of China's Yifan Hou, currently competing in Istanbul in a high ranking women's international tournament. Hou made a great start to the event but round five saw her complaining of illness, according to Chessbase although she still drew her game against former women's world champion, Zhu Chen who now plays out of Qatar.
It will be interesting to see if Hou tries her luck in open chess tournaments, remembering that the Polgar sisters broke the mould and the grading barriers by fearlessly taking on the men players. Yifan Hou like many of the Chinese players has no shown no fear of long games, an attribute that the young Bobby Fischer demonstrated in spades in his early career.