“The golden era of Indian chess”: Koneru Humpy after the story of scripts

Grandmaster Koneru Humpy capped a marvelous year for Indian chess, beating Indonesian Irene Sukandar to become FIDE women’s rapid chess world champion in New York on Sunday. Humpy won the event in 2019 in Georgia and the Indian No. 1 is only the second player after China’s Ju Wenjun to win the title more than once. Humpy’s feat marked a sensational year for the chess fraternity after D Gukesh defeated China’s Ding Liren to become champion at the classical format world championship recently in Singapore. In September, India also won its first ever gold medals in the open and women’s categories at the Budapest Chess Olympiad.

The Indian, who started the tournament with a first round defeat, was the only winner in the 11th and final round, helping her take the lead with 8.5 points, half a point ahead of six others, including her compatriot D Harika.

“It was indeed a very happy moment for me as it is my second world title, and I think it is a golden age for Indian chess to have two world champions in the same year. This will motivate definitely a lot of youngsters to turn professional,” Koneru said while speaking to NDTV in an exclusive interview.

Meanwhile, in the open section, 18-year-old Russian grandmaster Volodar Murzin won the gold medal ahead of a very nervous field of stars.

The deciding point for Murzin was his penultimate match against R Praggnanandhaa, in which the latter had a winning position that slipped away thanks to a one-shot error.

Quickly turning the situation around, Murzin took the lead after the 12th and penultimate round, then defended a slightly worse finish to seal the victory with 10 points in total.

It was an all-Russian spectacle in the open section as Alexander Grischuk finished second while third place went to former world championship challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi who both finished with 9.5 points.

Arjun Erigaisi scored 9 points and tied for fourth place with five more while Praggnanandhaa finished with 8.5 points. Among other Indians, Aravindh Chithambaram was the second best player with 8 points.

(With contributions from the agency)