World Rapid Chess C’ship: This ‘time’ Humpy settles for silver

Koneru Humpy

It was the proverbial slip between the cup and the lip as India's Koneru Humpy, after playing all the right moves, lost on time against Anastasia Bodnaruk of Russia. Bodnaruk, 31, was on Thursday crowned the Women's World Rapid Chess champion, while Humpy had to settle for a silver medal at Samarkand.

It was a magnificent effort by Humpy, 36, who has been India's top woman player for more than two decades. Magnus Carlsen, the 16th world chess champion, got his 16th World title by winning the Rapid World Chess Championship for the fifth time. Meanwhile, there was also heartbreak for Vidit Gujrathi as he finished fourth, missing a medal by a whisker.

In the penultimate round of the Open section, Gujrathi blundered in a completely winning position against Vladimir Fedesov to end on losing side.

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A win would have assured him a sure-shot podium finish and even a chance for the title as he would have tied with Magnus Carlsen.

The three-way tie for the first place between Bodnaruk, Humpy and Lei Tingjie, all scoring 8.5/11 had Tingjie with a poor tie-break being relegated to the third spot with a bronze medal, while Anastasia and Humpy headed into more super-fast Blitz version to decide the top place.

The tie-break where each player had just three minutes each plus a two-second increment for every move was more a nervy affair, the switch from rapid to blitz needing a different mental as well as physical approach and effort from both players.

Humpy had won this title in 2019 at Batumi. Here, she started disastrously with a loss in the very second round, but rallied magnificently to shrug off the debacle and tie for top place.

Humpy won the first game with the last few seconds left on the clock and squandered away advantage to end on the losing side in the second game, allowing Bodnaruk to equalise.

The third game ended with the players repeating their moves and splitting the point.

In the fourth game, Humpy once again played superbly to bring about a winning position, but too much thought in the opening stages deprived her of precious time and she ended up losing on time.

Incidentally, in all the four games played in the tie-break, Humpy was challenged more by the clock than her opponent.

Bodnaruk winning her first World title summed up: "Humpy played better than me, but I played faster. This was my way to success."