Hou stuns Humpy
NEW DELHI: China’s 15-year-old wonder-girl Hou Yifan dealt a serious blow to the title aspirations of second seed K. Humpy by inflicting a surprise defeat in the first game of their women’s World championship semifinals at Nalchik, Russia, on Wednesday.
In this Ruy Lopez game, Humpy blundered away a knight on the 34th move and thereafter continued to fight in search of a draw. But the Chinese girl played accurately and ended Humpy’s resistance in 55 moves.
Humpy faces a must-win situation on Thursday with white pieces to stay alive in the competition.
Source: Hindu.com
Humpy loses first game of semi-final
11 Sep 2008, 0004 hrs IST , TNN
CHENNAI: Koneru Humpy’s dream run in the World chess championships came to a painful halt when 14-year-old Hou Yifan of China beat her in the first game of the semi-inals on Wednesday.
Yifan won with white in 55 moves and plays with black in the return game on Thursday. In the second semifinals, Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia struck with white in the first game against Pia Cramling of Sweden.
Humpy came out of the Ruy Lopez opening with a slight disadvantage as Hou had good piece play. The Chinese broke through the Queenside with the knight and won a pawn on the 31st move. Then in a swift attack, Hou won a piece in the back rank to virtually seal the game. But the Indian fought back to keep her chances of drawing the game with some complications. However, when the position got simplified, the Chinese prodigy had an extra knight which was too good for the Indian.
Source: Times of India
Humpy did not ‘blunder away a Knight on move 34’.
The mistake was much earlier, perhaps as early as the mistake referred to by Ms Polgar.