The field for the Chinese Championship tournament isn't quite as great of a field as it could have been, with the top three players not participating, but it's still a pretty interesting event. Two rounds have been played so far, with 9 left to play in the round-robin.

The field of 12 players includes four gentlemen rated 2660 or above. Those are the favorites, but not the reasons I'm following with interest.

Seeded fifth is Hou Yifan, who elected not to play in the women's championship and instead is making a run at the main event. You may remember her (most recently) from her 11th place finish (out of 14, as the lowest seed) at Tata Steel, where she posted a 2685 performance rating, drew Anand, and won games against Giri, Harikrishni, and Sokolov. And, in case you weren't aware, she only just turned 19 earlier this year. She's the former, and probably future, women's world champion, but with her youth and some of her recent results against super-GM competition, I think she also has a good chance to someday surpass Polgar as the highest rated woman ever. I also think she has a legitimate chance to win this event, and I'd love to see it happen. A female national champion out of China (even if she didn't have to beat Wang Hao to get there) would be pretty cool.

Her schedule is top heavy: so far, she has played the #2 and #3 seeds - and scored 1.5/2, after beating Yu Yangyi today. She's definitely in position to make a run at first place.

The other interesting member of the field is Wei Yi, who I last extolled in the Reykjavik Open thread:

He drew the #4 seed today, and the #6 seed yesterday. A good start, certainly, for the player at the bottom of the ratings list. I'm very curious to see how the best under-14 player in the world does in this event.

The tournament's Chess-Results page is here: http://www.chess-results.com/tnr98201.aspx?lan=1
Official website here: http://chess.sport.org.cn/ (I don't know if there's a version of the page in English, as I can't read Chinese - not even well enough to find the "translate" button if there is one).

Hou has been playing in the "men's" championship for the past several years. Normally she performs quite poorly against the Chinese men. She explains that she has difficulty playing against people who are so familiar with her style of play, but hopefully after surviving, even thriving in, the Wijk An Zee meat grinder, she'll turn her fortunes around. I'd like to see her participate in the Fide World Cup, and normally it'll require doing well in the national championship, since she lost the automatic qualifier to Ushenina. Anyway 1.5/2, so far so good!

Yeah, I by no means meant to imply that it was the first time she'd played the "men's" side, as they are still calling it. I would point out that while her rating has been relatively steady for a few years now, there could be a major difference between a 17-year-old and a 19-year-old playing an event like this. Her explanation also makes sense, but at the same time an extra year of maturity can matter a lot. With the +1=1 start against two of the three highest seeds, she's off to a good start.

Incredibly impressive results from IM Wei Yi in Reykjavik. I didn't realize he played so well. Amazing.

And he just beat Li Chao B today (the #2 seed, at a 2686 rating), and after three rounds holds a share of the tournament lead, without having played anyone in the bottom half of the field (by rating) yet.

Good grief. At 14 years old, too.

He's not quite 14 yet, to be technical about it... his 14th birthday will be in June.

Wei Li wins again, with black against the #11 seed, bringing his score to 3/4 and putting him in sole possession of first place. Hou Yifan also picked up another win (bouncing back from her loss yesterday) and is one of three players tied for second place at 2.5/4, along with Ma Qun (2559, #9 seed) and Wang Yue (2706, #1 seed).

My persons of interest are certainly performing well so far, especially the 13 year old GM-Elect!

Ridiculous, it really is.

Who are the top guys that aren't playing the event?

Wang Hao (2743), Le Quang Liem (2716), and Ding Liren (2707) are the three highest rated players in China. Wang Yue (2706) is the lowest rated of China's four super-GMs, and the #1 seed in this event.

Edit: Worth mentioning that Ding Liren is playing the Alekhine Memorial which begins in two days, and also features Anand, Aronian, Kramnik, Svidler, Gelfand, Adams, and Vachiere-Lagrave. I'd skip my national championship for that event too (if I was a super-GM, and, you know, had the opportunity to make choices like that). And Wang Hao is of course playing the Norway event, which doesn't directly overlap, but does start 10 days after the Chinese Championship ends, and it makes sense that he doesn't want to wear himself out (at the expense of prep time). I don't know what Le Quang Liem's excuse is.

As an American you should have heard of Vietnam

Herp derp. All red flags look same. *hides in shame*

So yeah. The top TWO rated Chinese players are not participating, for the respectable reasons mentioned above.

We'll give you a pass. Not having Nguyen in his name, it would be hard to peg Le Quang for a Vietnamese.

Amazing, Wei Yi, the youngest GM currently, has a clear lead with 3/4!

Update with two rounds left to play: Wang Yue has asserted his dominance with three consecutive wins in the last three rounds, and has a 2 point lead over the field, so he's almost certainly the champ. Wei Yi has slowed down and is =4 -1 in the last five rounds, but still at 5/9 his score is >50%, and he's tied for second place in the field, which is pretty dang good for the lowest rated player out of 12. And again, he's NOT YET FOURTEEN YEARS OLD! And Hou Yifan won her round 9 game, getting herself to 5/9 as well, and also joining that four-way tie for second place.

So the battle for second place should be interesting in these last two rounds. And it will also be interesting to see if Wei Yi can maintain his + score through the end of the event, and if Hou Yifan can finish higher than fifth (her rating rank within the field). That said, there's not really any drama about the winner. Wang Yue is the highest rated player in the field, the only Super-GM, and he's made it clear that this is his event this year.

Thanks for the updates on this tournament BJJ. There's so much good chess being played right now and I keep forgetting to check on all of them.

Wang Yue is on a killing spree. After losing the first round he scored 7/8!

Even including that first round loss (and his title-clinching draw in round 10), his live rating is +10.9, which is a pretty impressive rating game from a tournament where he was already the highest rated player in the field.

Other news from round 10: Hou Yifan drew and is still in a four-way tie for 2nd place (still 2 full points behind Wang Yue, now with just the one round left), but Wei Yi is no longer part of that group, dropping his game and falling to 5/10 for the event. So if he wants to finish above 50%, he needs a win in the last round. Not that he *has* to finish above 50% to prove anything, finishing 5.5/11 and in 6th place would be perfectly impressive for the youngest and lowest rated player in a 12 person field. It just wouldn't be living up to his lofty start to the event.

Even though Hou isn't crushing like I had hoped at the start of the competition, she's still performing reasonably well. I don't know if this event is a world cup qualifer, but I'd really like to see her in the FIDE World Cup.

[edit] Nope, need either Asian Zonals or the Asian Continental Chess Championships, but the next ACCC starts 1 day after the end of 1st leg of the Women's Grand Prix, which she will be participating in and also starts almost right after this event ends. Arghh! I doubt she'll be missing 6 weeks of classes in a row.

I would have hoped she'd ditch the Women's Grand Prix. She's not going to get better by regularly playing fields mostly consisting of players 100-200 points below her.