Hou Yifan is the Chinese grandmaster widely regarded as the strongest female chess player of her generation — and, by most measures, the second-strongest woman in history behind Judit Polgár. She became the youngest-ever Women’s World Champion in 2010 at age 16, won the women’s title four times, and for roughly a decade stood as the highest-rated female player in the world by a wide margin. She earned the grandmaster title at 14 — still a record for the youngest female GM ever.
Quick facts
- Full name: Hou Yifan (侯逸凡) · Born: 27 February 1994, Xinghua, Jiangsu, China
- Title: Grandmaster — earned at 14 (youngest female GM in history)
- Peak rating: 2686 (March 2015) — the second-highest ever by a woman
- World titles: 4× Women’s World Champion (2010, 2011, 2013, 2016)
- Style: classical, positional, deeply precise — with a taste for elegant queen sacrifices
Who is Hou Yifan?
Born in Xinghua in 1994, Hou was a prodigy from the start. She earned the grandmaster title in 2008 at 14 years, 6 months, and 16 days — the youngest any woman has ever done it, a record that still stands. Two years later, in 2010, she won the Women’s World Championship at 16, becoming the youngest women’s world champion in history.
From there she simply kept climbing. She defended and re-won the women’s crown in 2011, 2013, and 2016 — four titles in all. In March 2015 she pushed her rating to 2686, overtaking Judit Polgár to become the world’s top-rated woman, and she has held that spot essentially continuously since. (Polgár’s career peak of 2735 remains the highest a woman has ever reached.) What sets her apart isn’t just the trophies: for years she has chosen to test herself in open events against the world’s leading men rather than staying inside the women’s-only circuit.
What is Hou Yifan’s playing style?
Hou is a classical, positional player at heart — precise, patient, and superb at converting small advantages — but she’s no pushover in a knife fight. She plays the razor-sharp Sicilian Defense as Black and has produced some genuinely spectacular tactical moments, including a famous positional queen sacrifice at Gibraltar in 2017 that left commentators reaching for superlatives.
We break it all down in Hou Yifan’s playing style.
What openings does Hou Yifan play?
With the black pieces she’s a lifelong devotee of the Sicilian Defense — especially Najdorf and Taimanov structures — and she also leans on the solid, strategic French Defense. Against 1.d4 she’s comfortable in Nimzo-Indian and Queen’s Indian setups. As White she’s principled and direct, usually opening 1.e4.
See the full repertoire in Hou Yifan’s openings.
Career highlights
- 2008: earns the grandmaster title at 14 — the youngest female GM in history.
- 2010: wins the Women’s World Championship at 16 — the youngest-ever women’s world champion.
- 2011, 2013, 2016: wins the women’s title three more times, for four in total.
- 2012: beats Judit Polgár at the Gibraltar Masters — Polgár’s first loss to a female player in over two decades.
- March 2015: reaches 2686, passing Polgár to become the highest-rated woman in the world.
- 2017: becomes the first woman to win the Biel Chess Festival, one of the strongest opens on the calendar.
The best games
Hou’s finest games mix classical clarity with flashes of brilliance — the historic win over Judit Polgár and that jaw-dropping Gibraltar queen sacrifice among them. We’ve collected the highlights in Hou Yifan’s best games.
Fun facts
- She’s a Rhodes Scholar — she completed a Master of Public Policy at the University of Oxford.
- In 2020, at age 26, she became the youngest-ever full professor at Shenzhen University, where she leads the chess program.
- She has often skipped the women’s-only championship cycle on principle, preferring to prove herself in open tournaments against top male grandmasters.
- She once described chess as “mostly a passion” rather than a career — and has genuinely built a life beyond the board while remaining an all-time great.
FAQ
Is Hou Yifan the best female chess player ever? She’s usually ranked second all-time behind Judit Polgár, whose peak rating of 2735 remains the highest by a woman. But Hou owns four Women’s World Championships and was the top-rated woman on the planet for roughly a decade — an extraordinary résumé.
What is Hou Yifan’s highest rating? 2686, reached in March 2015. It’s the second-highest classical rating ever achieved by a female player.
How many times was Hou Yifan Women’s World Champion? Four times: 2010, 2011, 2013, and 2016. She first won it at 16, the youngest ever.
When did Hou Yifan become a grandmaster? In 2008, at 14 years and about 6 months — the youngest female grandmaster in history.
Why doesn’t Hou Yifan play as much anymore? She stepped back from full-time competition to pursue an academic career, becoming a university professor, while still appearing in select events. She has also been openly critical of the women’s-only championship format.
Keep exploring
Dig deeper: her best games · her playing style · her opening repertoire · her rating history · fun facts & records · or browse all chess players.
Written and fact-checked by the Chess Lab Academy Editorial Team · Facts verified against Wikipedia, her FIDE profile, and Chess.com, as of July 2026 · Last verified 2026-07-10 · How we verify content.