FIDE Ladies’s World Cup remaining: Humpy attracts with Divya in first recreation

Younger Indian Worldwide Grasp Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to carry stalwart Koneru Humpy to a attract recreation 1 of the FIDE Ladies’s World Cup remaining, with each gamers having their share of alternatives to take the lead right here on Saturday.

The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Speedy champion, holds a slight edge going within the second and remaining recreation below the classical chess guidelines within the two-game mini-match, and may the impasse proceed, video games of shorter period will likely be performed to find out the winner.

Humpy employed the Queen’s gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a reasonably fascinating recreation proper out of the opening as Divya, 19, got here up with a bit sacrifice early to disclaim the black king the proper to fortress.

Humpy was the primary to err and, in accordance with computer systems, Divya had issues below management on the 14th transfer. Nonetheless in her bid to get better the additional materials, the Nagpur woman, who has secured a spot within the Candidates event together with her sterling efficiency right here, missed a promising continuation.

What adopted the alternate of all minor items and the following queen and rook endgame gave sufficient counter play to each gamers. The sport was finally drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to pressure perpetual checks.

“The sport noticed an especially sharp battle with the sport ending in a attract 41 strikes. On transfer 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by providing one other pawn, which seemed like house preparation. Humpy made a sensible resolution of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced place was reached by transfer 10 by white,” mentioned Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the primary Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.

“Nonetheless, as an alternative of growing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on transfer 10, giving big positional benefit to Divya. Divya may have gained big positional benefit on the twelfth transfer by transferring a rook. Nonetheless, she selected to play for King aspect assault by sacrificing a bit as an alternative.

“Humpy, too, erred at this stage and as an alternative of transferring the King to Queen aspect, moved it to the King aspect. Divya, on transfer 14, may have obtained a crushing assault by threatening a mate by growing her Queen. As an alternative she selected to alternate a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece,” mentioned Thipsay.

“Gamers thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to assault Humpy’s King however the latter defended precisely and the sport was drawn in 41 strikes by perpetual examine,” he added.

Within the play-off for the third place, Chinese language gamers Zhongyi Tan, the previous girls’s world champion and prime seed Lei Tingjie additionally determined to separate factors out of a Queen’s gambit declined recreation.

The opening raised visions of an in depth contest between the 2 however having been knocked out of title race within the earlier spherical, none of them needed to take any big danger. It was nonetheless a center recreation when the gamers shook fingers.

With the highest two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the subsequent Candidates can be assigned, whereas the participant ending third may also get an entry to the premier occasion scheduled for 2026.

Outcomes: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).