Koneru Humpy
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Contents |
Career
2019
World Women’s Rapid Chess title
Amit Sampat, Dec 30, 2019: The Times of India
Koneru Humpy has given another reason to google her. India’s first Woman Grand Master is the new women’s World Rapid Chess Champion.
Her feat came at the King Salman World Rapid Chess Championships in Moscow, Russia, on Saturday. While Magnus Carlsen clinched his third world crown in the Open group, Humpy emerged winner among the Women. Humpy, seeded 13th, was tied with China’s Lei Tingjie collecting nine points each in 12 rounds to become the first Indian woman to win the World rapid title.
To break the tie an Armageddon game was played between Humpy and Tingjie. After losing her opening playoff game, Humpy recovered in the second and clinched the title in Armageddon decider.
“This is my first World Championship title and I am very happy and excited with this victory,” Humpy said in an interview with Fide.
She added, “People were expecting me to win the Classical WCH for many years. Nor I have been very good at rapid. So it was an unexpected victory for me. When I started my first game, I didn’t have any expectations to finish first. I thought a finish in top-three would be a great result,” she stated.
In the three-day rapid event of the World Rapid and Blitz Championship organised by the World Chess Federation (FIDE), Humpy, who has 2438 Elo ranking points, gave a performance rating of 2538. Shining on the world stage is not a new occurrence for Humpy. She has four World Championship crowns across various age groups as a junior. Talking about the tiebreaks, Humpy said, “I really didn’t expect to play the tiebreak games. I managed to win my rapid games in the last two rounds and Tingjie lost in her last round where she needed a draw to win the title. And I got the opportunity to play the tiebreak.”
In 2011, Humpy lost a World Championship match against Hou Yifan. There too in the tiebreak, she had endured a false start. Analysing her mental state, Humpy said, “Of course, I lost my first game with White as I did not play quickly and lost on time. Since I was desperate to win the second, I chose the Modern defence and gambled which yielded positive results. In the final game, I had a pleasant position in the middle and managed to beat the time too.”
In the 12-round rapid event, Humpy recorded seven wins, four draws and suffered a sixth round defeat to 24th seed IM Bulmaga Irina.
On her way to glory, Humpy defeated the lower ranked Margarita Potapova, Khomeriki Nino, Kovalevskaya Ekaterina, Girya Olga and Voit Daria before posting an upset win over ninth ranked GM Dzagnidze Nana in the eighth round and surprising sixthseeded Tan Zhongyi in the final round. She drew with lower rated Charochkina Daria, Lagno Kateryna and Atalik Ekaterina. Her title quest stuttered a bit as she lost her sixth round match. Thereafter, she made all the right moves and forced top-seeded Muzychuk Anna to split points in the seventh round. That draw against the higher rated Ukranian GM, gave Humpy a much-needed boost as she went on to surprise the ninth seed in the following round.
On the third day of the meet, Humpy started with back-to-back draws which included No 3 seed Lagno Kateryna in the 10th round to share the joint third position.
She signed off the meet with a two successive victories and took everyone by surprise by sharing the top position with fifth seed Chinese GM Tingjie at nine points each.
2020
Feb: becomes world no. 2
Prasad RS, February 18, 2020: The Times of India
Grandmaster Koneru began 2020 from where she left off last year winning he Cairns Cup at St Louis, US. The 32-year-old drew her final round against D Harika to finish the competition with 6 points from 9 rounds. Current world champion Ju Wenjun came a close second with 5.5 points while Mariya Muzychuk settled for the third position (5 points). Harika (4.5 points) finished 6th.
Humpy’s performance in the tournament not only fetched 5 ELO points but also helped her move to the 2nd spot in world rankings. Barring a reversal in the second round to Mariya, Humpy pretty much looked in control of things throughout the tournament. “This win is special because it has come in a strong tournament which has the world’s top players featuring in it. To be able to compete with them and do well gives me a lot of confidence,” Humpy told TOI.
Humpy singled out the 6th -round win against Alexandra Kosteniuk as the most cherished one. “This tournament had an average player rating of 2500 which meant that very little separated us. The win against Alexandra was a hard-fought one. It was important not to lose any games in the latter half of the competition as that would have affected my title chances,” assessed Humpy.
After 7 rounds, Humpy and Wenjun were in joint lead with 4.5 points each. However, round 8 saw Humpy’s title hopes brighten. Humpy got the sole lead after getting the better of Valentina Gunina, while Wenjun went down to Carissa Yip. “I wanted to be risk-free in the final round as I only needed a draw (against Harika) to finish first. I was prepared for a tie-break as Alexandra too would have finished on the same points as me had she won her round 9 game against Wenjun. But Alexandra lost,” she said.
2024
2nd woman to win world rapid title twice
Amit Karmarkar, Dec 30, 2024: The Times of India
Koneru Humpy arrived at the Women’s World Rapid Chess in New York with a baggage of poor results, starting with 2022 Olympiad where the top-seeded Indian women had to settle for a bronze. She finished second-last in Norway classical event this June and last in Tata Rapid meet in Nov. She was also not a part of Team India that tasted unprecedented golden success in Sept’s Olympiad.
But Humpy, 37, made a remarkable turnaround by winning the Rapid crown on Saturday with 8.5 points in 11 rounds where an eight-player tie at the top looked possible. She had won the same title in 2019, and becomes only the second woman ever after China’s Ju Wenjun to clinch it twice.
Was determined to prove my mettle, says Humpy
The 37-year-old’s win once again underlined that class is permanent. And maturity counts more in women’s chess rather than young age. “I was playing badly and losing badly. So I started questioning myself and I was feeling quite low,” Humpy told Chessbase India . “But I thought I should give this tournament a try and I am happy that it worked out.
“After a lot of failures in the past tournaments, it is not easy to psychologically fight back and compete. But somewhere inside I had that determination to prove myself and achieve.” Despite the self-questioning and thoughts of quitting, there were other factors that went in her favour. Besides winning the gold in World Rapid in 2019, she had won the silver and bronze in this event in 2022 and 2012. That helped her regain strength to try once again.
And of course, her dad K Ashok, who not only played a pivotal role in Humpy becoming India’s first woman GM at 15 but continues to inspire her. “Apart from chess, he doesn’t talk about anything,” said Humpy with a smile. “I might m iss practice or take a day off from chess. But staying up late my dad will be in front of the computer – enjoying playing and watching chess. And he tells me which chess videos to fol- low. I think that atmosphere probably made me stay focused on the game.”
Even Humpy’s seven year-old daughter Aahana was casually asking why her mother was not winning or getting a medal recently. “She will enjoy this victory a lot,” said a beaming Humpy, adding that she has not spoken to her daughter after landing in New York for the last three-four days. “But I will speak to her tomorrow.”
Humpy’s success was possible when her last round opponent Irene Sukandar lost an almost drawn rook and pawns endgame with a series of mistakes. “It reached a point where I could not improve my position. It is a simple draw technique. But the nervous moment played a role. My opponent was low on time and played wrong moves.”
Except in the first round where she lost on time, Humpy said she did well to convert her advantageous positions in the tournament. “I was in trouble against Vantika Agrawal and Nino Batsiashvili (in R6 and R8, respectively). But when there was time pressure, I was able to trick them (and won). That mattered a lot.” Humpy said she did not work on her openings before this tournament but played a lot of games online to help her practically.
ERIGAISI FINISHES FIFTH
Had Arjun Erigaisi won the Open World Rapid title played concurrently, he would have sealed the 2026 Candidates spot as the leader of the FIDE Circuit points. But he finished fifth with nine points. He defeated former champion Nodirbek Abdusattorov but could only draw his last two rounds against Dominguez and Alireza Firouzja.
Arjun will get more chances to win the Candidates spot till the end of next year via rating, top-3 finish at the knockout World Cup or through next year’s FIDE Circuit points.
Russia’s 59th seed Volodar Murzin extended the script of young boys winning world crowns. The 18-year-old won the Open world rapid title with 10 points in 13 rounds. Rated Elo 2588, he gave a rating performance of 2881. He scored stunning wins over Caruna, Hikaru Nakamura, Jan Duda and R Praggnanandhaa.
New York will host two day World Blitz championship in both sections.
