CHENNAI: Koneru Humpy’s dream of winning the world women’s chess title ended up in a big disappointment. It was touted to be a close contest, but turned out be a one-way traffic as Hou Yifan of China retained her world crown, winning the 10-game match by an emphatic 5.5-2.5 margin with two games still remaining in the Albanian capital of Tirana.
The Chinese bagged her second world title, besides taking home €120,000. Humpy got €80,000. For the third straight time, Hou proved to be a stumbling block in Humpy’s pursuit of becoming world champion. The Chinese had defeated Humpy in the semifinals of the last two world championships. Even though the huge margin of victory is not a true reflection of the tough battles fought over the board, Hou proved to be a better player than Humpy in complicated positions, which eventually turned the match in her favour.
After playing impressively in the first two games of the match where the Indian held the upper hand even though it was not sufficient for victory, Humpy stumbled in the third game after boldly deploying a sharp line and sacrificing the pawn. Humpy faltered in a maze of complications under time pressure making innocuous moves as Hou kept improving her position to take the lead.
Humpy recovered from her defeat to make draws in the fourth and fifth game. The sixth game turned the match on its head. After obtaining a promising position in the middle-game from the white side of Queen’s Gambit Declined, Humpy lost the thread of the position from the 30th move making a series of mistakes. A blunder on the 36th move helped Hou uncork a knight sacrifice a few moves later to finish the game in style. The 17-year-old’s victory was even more admirable because she spent time in the hospital on the previous day complaining of stomach pain. The tests in the hospital revealed Hou’s health was Ok. It was probably owing to the tensions of playing a world championship match.
With two points down and four games remaining, Humpy’s desperate attempt to complicate the position from the black side of Ruy Lopez in the seventh game backfired. The Indian entered the rook and pawn ending two pawns downs without any compensation. Even though the game stretched for 97 moves, the result was never in doubt. Facing a near improbable situation of winning three straight games to keep the match alive, Humpy tried for some time in the eighth game before accepting the inevitable with a 29-move draw.
Having India’s leading player Sandipan Chanda as her second, besides her father-cum-coach Ashok, helped Humpy achieve good positions after the opening phase.
However, Humpy faltered in the middle-game with Hou creating more obstacles and playing better. With age on her side, Humpy is likely to get another shot at the world title. Having gained the experience of world championship, she should perform better the next time after rectifying her shortcomings, besides improving her play in double-edged positions.
Hou Yifan continued her domination over Humpy, not losing a single game in the match (winning three, drawing five) and had a performance rating of 2736. The Chinese is set to topple Humpy from the second spot after gaining 18 points in the women’s rating list in December. With Hou improving with every outing, she is likely to dominate the women’s circuit for a long time.