Humpy leaves, paving way for a Chinese queen
Hari Hara Nandanan, TNN,
Dec 19, 2010, 01.03am IST
CHENNAI: There will be a Chinese queen in the women’s World Chess Championship at Hatay. As Indian Grandmaster Koneru Humpy left the stage in the semi, losing to 16-year-old Hou Yifan 0.5-1.5, the final will now be a Chinese affair.
Yifan, who is a step away from creating a record for becoming the youngest women’s (or open) world champion, will meet either Zhao Xue or Lufei Ruan, in the four-game final from Monday.
For Humpy, it was a second successive defeat in the semifinals of the World Championship and what must hurt her is the fact that both of them were inflicted by Yifan. Humpy has a good record against all the women GMs but against Yifan, she seems to have problems.
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
I really do wish that at some point, not just the finals, the WCC format was changed to matches of moderate length.
Quick elimination matches don’t determine the true strength of a player. And it certainly doesn’t reveal their character.
It may actually be unfair. I’m thinking that T. Kosintseva appears to have to play a few games before hitting her stride.
It’s easy to remember the drama of Spassky vs Fischer, Tal vs Botvinnik and to get a real sense of their strengths and weaknesses as players.
Why can’t we have that same level of competition in women’s chess.
Koneru’s loss to Yifan in this abbreviated match could just as easily be considered an unlucky roll of the dice.
“Humpy has a good record against all the women GMs but against Yifan”??
That’s not true.
Check her record against Zhao Xue or Zhu Chen. Her No 2 ranking is not convincing.