Chess: China’s Yifan became a Grandmaster in 14 years, know the story of her struggle and success

Under the title of World Champion born on this date, today we will talk about the chess personality who broke almost all the records of former champions. A prodigiously talented player who won Women’s World Championships in various categories. I am not talking about anyone else but China’s Hou Yifan.

Hou Yifan was born on 27 February 1994. His mother Wang Qian was a nurse and his father Hou Jujian was a magistrate in Xinhua. Yifan started chess at the age of three and began defeating father and grandmother within a few weeks. She started playing tournaments in five years. She played a match with China’s men’s and women’s team coach Grandmaster Yi Jiang Chuyan in 2003 and was able to spot every weak move of his.

In the same year, he secured first place in the World Youth Championship in the under ten years age group. At the age of twelve, Hou became the youngest player to compete in the Women’s World Championships (Yekaterinburg 2006) and the Chess Olympiad (Torino 2006). She achieved the title of Woman Grandmaster in January 2007 and in August 2008 broke the record of veteran Judith Polgar by becoming a Grandmaster in 14 years, six months and 16 days.

In 2010, Yifan won the Women’s World Championships in Turkey, becoming the youngest person to do so at the age of 16. After that the next three championships were also won. Hou was not behind not only in chess but also in education. Studied at Peking Universities in 2012. Took a Master’s degree in Public Policy at St Hilda’s College, Oxford. From the year 2020, she became a professor at Shenzhen Universities. He is the highest rated player among active players since 2015. She is 73 points ahead of her nearest rival, world women’s champion Xu Wenjun.