Women's Candidate Master (2013); FIDE Master (2016; this could also possibly be Canada's first(13) female player to be awarded an open/men's type of chess title), Women's Grandmaster (2017)(19). She received the Women's FIDE Master (2014) and Women's International Master (2015) title, and won the 2016 Canadian Women's (2.2) Zonal championship with a score of 5.5/6 total(16) after 7 rounds in a 7-player round-robin event. She qualified for the Women's World Championship (2017) but was knocked-out by Natalia Pogonina in the first round.
Qiyu Zhou was born in the Hubei(14) province of China, moving later to both Antibes, France and Finland(6) before settling in Canada's capital of Ottawa. She learned the game in France, later picking up a silver medal for her age group at the 2008 WYCC (women's category). Qiyu won the Girl's U-14 World Youth Chess Championship in 2014 (broke the tie with Oliwia Kiolbasa at 8.5/11)(7) at Durban, South Africa. In 2011, she finished a point and a half ahead of clear 3rd, placing clear 2nd (she met the tournament winner Melissa Giblon in the critical 4th round) in the Canadian Girl's U-12 youth chess championship with 6/7. She finished with 6/9 at the 2011 WYCC Girl's U-12 category in Brazil and was playing at the World Youth Championship (2012) in the U-12 category. She won clear 1st with 5.5/6 in the Canadian Youth U-14 (Girl's division) Chess Championship in 2013. At New York in 2014, she scored 6.5/9 at the North American Youth Chess Championship U18 (2, 3, 4) for a player who could've qualified in 2 lower sections.
For the Girl's U-14 group, she ranked top on the continent-rank Americas listing, 9th on the same world (Girl's U-14) listing and 3rd in the (U-14 open of the Canadian zone) on the FIDE August 2014 list. But she also rose to 100th on the Canadian active players' list, 4th on the list of Canadian women's players and 170th overall in the (open world U-14 active) rankings in October 2014 which are provided by FIDE. Her debut at the Chess Olympiad (Women) (2014) on 4th board for the Canadian team registered a score of +6-2=1 and received the Women's FIDE master title awarded by FIDE as a consequence of her results at the 2014 North American Junior chess championship (4, 5) and here. Gergely Szabo was one of her coaches and after 6 games played, she scored 2.5 at the 2014 World Youth Team Chess Olympiad (9). She scored 4.5 points (+3-4=3) for Canada's top board on their 2016 Women's Olympiad team.
Videos
Bindi Cheng and Qiyu analyze their 2013 Canadian open game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?featur... ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAN... ( Qiyu Zhou vs J Novkovic, 2014 1-0 - Mato Jelic analysis); http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUJL... (2014 Olympiad interview); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOn... (2016 Olympiad interview); http://youtu.be/PGD-d_F5HvY?t=5h8m31s (World Youth chess championship 2014 interview)
References / Sources
(1) https://sites.google.com/site/ottaw... (2013 CYCC standings),
(2) http://chess-results.com/tnr137865.... (2014 women's U-18 NAYCC results),
(3) http://www.chess-results.com/tnr140... (2014 Women's Olympiad results),
(4) http://www.chesseducators.com/north... (2014 NAYCC advertisement),
(5) http://ratings.fide.com/tournament_... (2014 NAYCC FIDE page),
(6) http://qiyuzhou.wordpress.com/ (site administered by her),
(7) http://www.chess-results.com/tnr144... (2014 WYCC results),
(8) http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/102... (Epoch Times article),
(9) http://wyco2014.chess.hu/gallery (4th board for the top of 3 Canadian teams at the youth team Olympiad in Hungary),
(10) http://www.cappelle-chess.fr/en2/de... (she finished with 4.5/9 in the 2015 edition of this tournament),
(11) http://www.canadianchesszonal.com/x... (a Canadian Zonal page),
(12) https://ratings.fide.com/toparc.pht... (ranked as high as 18th highest rated in this category on the 2015 October list),
(13) http://chess-results.com/tnr231109.... (possibility of an (IM (or perhaps WGM - http://forum.chesstalk.com/showthre... discusses details) type of) norm for her at this tournament, with her finishing with 7/9),
(14) https://ratings.fide.com/apps/23816... (source for birthday and home province),
(15) http://www.chess.ca/zhou-qiyu (profile page on Canadian Chess Federation site),
(16) http://chess.ca/newsfeed/node/887 (2016 Canadian women zonal championship newsfeed report),
(17) http://mdvmexico.com.mx/CONTINENTAL... (live 2016 Women's continental championship games),
(18) http://www.chess-results.com/tnr246... (2016 Women's Continental championship crosstable),
(19) http://ratings.fide.com/title_appli... (awarded 2017 March).
Wikipedia
Wikipedia article: Qiyu Zhou
Kibitzing
