Hou Yifan Beats Humpy
By Arvind Aaron

China's 14-year old Hou Yifan overcame Koneru Humpy 2-0 in the blitz tie-break of the second semifinal match at Nalchik in Russia on September 12. Humpy pulled out of two deficits, once in classical chess and once in rapid chess but the blitz was difficult for her.

The classical chess ended 1-1 and rapid too ended 1-1 with players winning with white pieces. In the blitz games, Humpy lost making positional inaccuracies starting move 20 which made it look one sided. That too happened with white. Down a game in the blitz and black to play, Humpy managed with an offbeat opening and it worked. In the middlegame, the Chinese player made full use of the chances to enter a rooks ending with extra pawns and win in 41 moves.

Humpy's campaign for the world title has ended this year. She will have to wait two more years to win the world women's title. She has never reached the finals and she missed it this year too. Hou Yifan is a good player and can become the youngest world women's champion at 14. Maya Chiburdanidze of Georgia has won the title at the age of 16 in 1978.

Hou Yifan faces Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia in the four game finals. Kosteniuk is a strong player who had also never become champion. Either way, a new champion will emerge on Sep 17. The present title holder Xu Yuhua of China has already been eliminated from this competition. If Hou Yifan wins the title, she will become the fourth Chinese player after Xie Jun, Zhu Chen and Xu Yuhua to win.

In the rapid games, Hou Yifan drew first blood taking a lead by winning the opening rapid game when Humpy allowed the white queen to swing into her territory. Rapid games are 25 minutes a side with an increment of ten seconds per move. The blitz games were five minutes a side with a ten second increment. Humpy repeated the Breyer variation of the Ruy Lopez and did not opt for any surprise. Humpy sacrificed a pawn for aggressive play and had the initiative before falling apart in the end.

In the reverse rapid game, Hou Yifan went for the queen's Indian defence. Humpy as white obtained a central passed pawn in exchange for a black knight which was in the heart of the board. Humpy benefited from the knight blunder from her opponent. By attacking the knight and queen at the same time with her bishop to win a knight and level the scores 1-1 in rapid chess.

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