Koneru Humpy
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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.
