Monday, December 30, 2019

Chess News

At the World Women's Rapid Championship 2019, Moscow, Russia

Final standings in women's section

1 GM Koneru Humpy (IND,2438) 9,0
2 GM Lei Tingjie (CHN,2498) 9,0
3 IM Atalik Ekaterina (RUS,2360) 9,0

13 GM Harika Dronavalli (IND,2425) 8,0

Koneru Humpy's scored an amazing comeback to win the Women's world rapid title ... After twelve rounds it all ended in a three-way tie; Lei Tingjie, who was leading the event, lost her last round to Ekaterina Atalik and also Humpy who beat Tan Zhongyi in the final round ... Atalik, Humpy, and Lei all ended on 9.0/12 ... Because Koneru Humpy and Lei Tingjie had the best tiebreak, a playoff was organized between the two ... In the blitz, Humpy had a slow start and lost the first game with white pieces ... Lei needed to hold Humpy in the 2nd game for the championship ... Lei had chances to win this game but she made mistakes under pressure and Humpy took advantage of it and won this game with black pieces ... With the momentum firmly on her side, Humpy was all pumped up for the Armageddon ... She lost the toss and Lei decided to take the white pieces and an extra minute ... The Armageddon game was one-way traffic as Humpy played solidly and Lei was unable to make any headway ... Very soon, the Indian GM built up a winning position and agreed to a draw via threefold repetition.

In the Blitz World Championship, Humpy finished on the 12th position with 10.5 points ... After 13 rounds, Humpy and Lagno were leading with 10 points each, but Humpy lost the last 3 rounds to finish with 10.5 points after 17 rounds ... Harika finished in the 25th position.

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