The Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival ended in dramatic fashion last week with a tie for first place between rising Chinese starlet Hou Yifan and English veteran Nigel Short, with both top-scoring on 8/10 to finish a half point clear of the chasing pack of Michael Adams, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Viktor Bologan and Emil Sutovsky.

However the tournament rules dictate that, in the event of a tie, the players have to play a series of speed playoff games, not only for the title but also for the first prize of $31,000 - and this duly went to the former world title challenger Short, who beat Hou, 1.5-0.5. And in addition to the $31,000 first prize, Short also won a further $8,000 for the Commonwealth prize, awarded in celebration of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, and only eligible to the top-scoring Commonwealth player.

Yet despite this being one of Short's best results in recent times, it was totally overshadowed by 17-year-old Hou's epoch-making performance on the Rock, as she not only pocketed the $19,000 second prize but also added herself a bonus of a further $16,000 for the best female performance - a prize that everyone expected Judit Polgar would easily win.

Reigning Women's World Champion Hou - who faced seven elite grandmasters rated 2700 or over - wowed the chess world with a performance that was pure Polgaresque in itself. As well as wins over chess legends Judit Polgar (the first time Polgar has lost to a woman since 1992 - to her eldest sister, Susan - when she was just 16) and Alexei 'Fire on Board' Shirov, she also beat Zoltan Almasi and Le Quang Liem, and drew with Adams and Mamedyarov for a tournament performance rating that went off the Richter scale for a woman at an astonishing 2872.

Hou is now the second highest rated female in the history of the game, and now closing in fast on Polgar. There has been speculative talk in the past year or so of a match between Polgar and Hou. Although Polgar has never competed in events limited to women, now suddenly the prospects of such a match-up has become "interesting".

Book of the Year

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