Defined: How Divya Deshmukh turned Grandmaster with out fulfilling all FIDE norms and score necessities

19-year-old
Divya Deshmukh created historical past on Monday, 28 July by successful the FIDE Girls’s World Cup 2025 in Batumi, Georgia, turning into the first-ever Indian to win the title. She defeated her senior and considered one of India’s most revered gamers, Grandmaster Koneru Humpy, in a tense closing that went right down to the wire.

With this win, Divya additionally earned the celebrated Grandmaster (GM) title, one thing only a few gamers on the planet have achieved. She turned the 88th Grandmaster from India and solely the fourth Indian lady to achieve that stage after Humpy, Harika Dronavalli, and R Vaishali.

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How did Divya develop into a GM with out fulfilling the same old guidelines?

Turning into a Grandmaster in chess shouldn’t be simple. A participant should earn three GM norms in official FIDE-rated tournaments and cross a score of 2500 sooner or later of their profession. Divya entered the World Cup with out a GM norm and her score was under 2500. So, she didn’t meet these necessities.

Nonetheless, there’s a particular rule in chess that made her achievement attainable. It is named the Direct Title rule.

What’s a Direct Title?

The Worldwide Chess Federation, also called FIDE, permits sure achievements to routinely grant a participant the GM title. These are known as Direct Titles. Profitable tournaments just like the Chess World Cup, Continental Championships and the Girls’s World Cup can instantly qualify a participant for the GM title while not having to finish norms or score.

So, by successful the FIDE Girls’s World Cup, Divya earned an automated Grandmaster title. That’s why she doesn’t want to attend for 2 extra norms or to cross 2500 anymore.

How the ultimate went down

The ultimate in opposition to Humpy was something however simple. Each classical video games resulted in a draw. Within the first fast tiebreak recreation, Divya had the white items however couldn’t profit from it, and it resulted in a draw after 81 strikes.

However within the second fast recreation, Humpy made just a few blunders beneath time stress after 75 strikes, and Divya was in a position to seal the win and with it the grand prize. With it got here the cherry on prime – the GM title.