Hou Yifan loses in 4

https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/tradewise-gibraltar-masters-2017/10/1/17

*e it was a typo she resigned after 5 moves not 4.

Yeah, it should be seen as a "protest" coz she thinks the pairings have been fixed e.g. she played almost against women.

Such strange actions spoil all sympathies in a couple of moves. Don't do that, never lose on purpose. Never, never, never!

8 of her 10 pairings were with women. This was either deliberate or a very, very unlikely coincidence. Since I don't have access to the method by which the players were paired (and probably, neither do you) it's impossible to reasonably conclude one way or the other from my living room, but let me just say that if this is the result of sexism, it is extremely shameful. Hou Yifan's ability to compete with the world's best male players is beyond doubt, and she deserves the same opportunity to play them as everyone else.

From chessgames.com comments:

" Vitiugov played five women, as did many other men. Arakhamia-Grant and Pratyusha played six women each. And there are plenty of players, both men and women, who played four women <in a row> (see my posts on the game page), including one men who did it in the four final rounds."

Today computer pairing is done routinely even for local tournaments, it's hard to imagine why would organizers meddle in this.

Her protest is most illogical as far as I can tell.

She was paired off against 8 females and 2 males.

Her argument is that women can fair just as well at chess as men.

So she protests because she was paired up against too many women.

If women are just as good as men, then what difference should it make the gender of her opponent so long as they are of good strength?

And it's not like she wasn't given any strong male opponents. They gave her Micheal Adams, and she lost to him in 70 moves.

What was she hoping for? To get paired up against Naka, and Caruana, and Topalov instead of some of the girls she faced? If that were the case then she would have even more losses, and women would look even worse at chess.

I say they give her what she wants, and let her play in a round robin against some super GMs where she will likely get butchered, but who knows she may surprise everyone, and do great. My money is on her losing these ego points though if she has to face off against Magnus, and the rest at the top.

the problem with World Champions (both Carlsen and Yifan) is they became too spoiled.. i just wish Wesley So snatches his Crown very soon.

and as for Yifan she should be penalized for throwing a game

Just play the games or retire like Judith polgar. I agree with #4 and #5.

@pseudopseudopseudo " Since I don't have access to the method by which the players were paired (and probably, neither do you)"
Is that so? I am pretty sure the pairings were done by the standard swisschess pairing program. You can buy that and just run the pairings yourself and I predict you will get the same pairings.

I honestly don't understand Hou's reaction. When I play chess I don't care whether I play vs. men or women, I am there to play chess moves. And if by coincidence I play against many women, fine then that's how it is. They won't change the pairings program just to meddle with that. (why would they in the first place? I don't understand the logic behind that argument)

Good luck. Magnus Carlsen vs Hou Yifan. 4- 0. Besides women play men all the time. Sopiko Guramishvili played 13 games in Tata Steel this year. 12 out of 13 were men. Hou Yifan isn't proving anything with the protest.