Koneru Humpy pips China's Zhu Jiner for Grand Prix title

Pune: Very little separated top seed Koneru Humpy and China’s Zhu Jiner, title contenders and co-leaders of the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix on Wednesday. The positions in the last-round games after four hours of play, on two different boards, all agreed that there was nothing much in between.

Both endgames (Humpy vs Nurgyul Salimova and Polina Shuvalova vs Zhu Jiner) saw rook, knight and pawns each, with both Humpy and Zhu enjoying extra and better-placed pawns. Though Zhu exchanged knights and Humpy rooks, both ended up on the winning side to tally seven points after nine rounds.

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So then? Humpy was declared champion according to tiebreak rules, since she played more games with black pieces – five to the Chinese’s four. In addition, she had defeated Jhu in the seventh round and was also the only undefeated player in this GP, one of rather moderate standing with an average rating of 2454

In terms of prize money and points, however, both were placed on level terms – earning 117.50 GP points and 15,500 euros each (appx Rs 15 lakh each). Humpy was tied first with two others in the third leg at Monaco GP and Zhu had shared first place with Anna Muzhychuk in the fourth leg in Cyprus.

“I could not sleep well the day before because of the mosquitos and the 8th round (vs Alina Kashlinskaya) was bad for me. I was lucky to escape with a draw,” Humpy said later, “But overall, I believe that luck favours the better player.

The 38-year-old revealed that winning the World Rapid title last year motivated her. After a belowpar show in classical chess last year, her form so far in the long form of the game this year has been heartening. Having missed playing the gold-winning women’s Olympiad team for personal reasons last year, Humpy proved beyond doubt that she is still the best woman player from India.

India’s wild card Divya Deshmukh (Elo 2460) finished third with 5.5 points, despite her 13.5 points (50% score) in 27 GP games indicating moderate returns.