Biel 2017: Hou Yifan Wins!

In one of the greatest results of her career - if not the greatest, apart from women's world championship events - Hou Yifan has won the 2017 edition of the Biel GM Tournament.

After five of nine rounds, when we left off, Etienne Bacrot was in clear first with four points, and Hou was half a point behind. In round 6 Bacrot drew and Hou was defeated by Pentala Harikrishna, who along with David Navara was the top seed entering the tournament. That kept Bacrot in clear first with 4.5 points, Harikrishna in second with 4 (along with Ruslan Ponomariov, who defeated Navara), and Hou (but not only Hou) with 3.5. In the next round, however, everything went up in the air. Harikrishna drew, and Hou defeated Bacrot to leave them all tied for first with 4.5 points, and they were joined there by young IM Nicos Giorgiadis. Giorgiadis defeated Noel Studer to make it a four-way tie for first, with Alexander Morozevich and Ponomariov just half a point behind after the former beat the latter.

In round 8 Hou and Harikrishna won again, against Rafael Vaganian and Ponomariov, respectively. Bacrot and Giorgiadis dropped half a point back after drawing with Navara and Peter Leko, respectively, and they were caught by Morozevich after he defeated Studer. Thus Hou and Harikrishna led with 5.5 points entering the final round, with Bacrot, Morozevich, and Giorgiadis half a point behind.

Hou kept on winning! She beat the hitherto undefeated Giorgiadis (who easily made a GM norm in any case, if he needed it), and Harikrishna blundered against Bacrot and lost. (He had probably missed that after 21.Bc5?? Bxf5 he couldn't recapture with the queen because of the simple fork 22...Rd5, so he had to let Black's queen into h2. That proved decisive as well.) That guaranteed clear first for Hou, and since Morozevich lost to Leko it meant that Bacrot finished in clear second, half a point back.

Hou finished the tournament rated 2669.6, gaining 17.6 points for her efforts. She's got a ways to go to get back to her career high rating of 2687.5, but she's certainly going in the right direction.

Final Standings:

1. Hou Yifan 6.5 (from 9)
2. Bacrot 6
3. Harikrishna 5.5
4-7. Ponomariov, Leko, Giorgiadis, Morozevich 5
8. Navara 4
9. Vaganian 2
10. Studer 1