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Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Women's world chess championship 2011 R1: Humpy draws fighting first game against Yifan

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Hi everyone,

Indian grandmaster Koneru Humpy drew a fighting game against defending champion Hou Yifan of China in the first game of the Women's World Chess Championship that began in Tirana, Albania on Tuesday.  

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The FIDE Women’s World Chess Championship Match between the current World Champion Hou Yifan of China and her challenger, Koneru Humpy of India, is being staged in the Triana International Hotel from November 14 to 30. The time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from move one. The winner of the ten-game match is the first player to reach 5.5 points or more. The prize fund is 200,000 Euro, with 60% going to the winner.


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Humpy was clearly in fighting mood and fought hard and took it all the way to 80 moves. Yifan had deep preparation ready for Humpy's Catalan and got the draw with right technique.  

"It was very interesting in the middle game. The position was not clear, there were some possibilities of the endgames where White could have an edge, but the way Black handled the position, I did not get much of an advantage," Humpy said after the game.

Humpy revealed that she is accompanied by Grandmaster Sandipan Chanda as her second and "apart from him there are other players from abroad to help me, but right now I don't want to reveal it." Hou Yifan said, "Hou Yifan: My coach is right behind – grandmaster Ye. My mother is also here."

Here is the Round 1 game

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3 comments:

  1. Amrit Puri Knights Chess Club New DelhiNovember 15, 2011 at 10:18 AM

    Anyone's game - they are testing waters or trying to wait for the first set of games.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alexis Cochran, New ZealandNovember 15, 2011 at 11:44 AM

    It might get dull with one person finding that one win and then hanging on to it. Let's see.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I still feel the men's championship is more exciting.

    ReplyDelete

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