World Women Chess Championship - 2008

[akmohanty]

koneru's game with blacks is on. she is holding tight but is getting into time trouble. she has to do 12 moves in 8 min whereas her Chinese opponent has 21 min

It's a nail-biting game right now, 5:30 for koneru v/s 12:30 for her opponent to do 7 moves. koneru trying to push per a col pawn all the way with help from the rook, bishop and queen. good job so far

koneru has got 2:30 min for 2 more moves which should be manageable. more importantly, her pieces now are much better positioned to attack white king from all directions. go, koneru, atleast manage a draw and come thru !!!

koneru wins and she is through to the semis

she plays another Chinese Yifan Hou starting Wed in the Semis.

[Sandeep]

Superb win. Full marks to Humpy for managing the time so well in a crunch situation. She is definitely a firm favourite here. Just two more wins away from becoming the world champion. Go Humpy

[ajay]

Great job Koneru! So she is in last four. Go Koneru!

[akmohanty]

bad news, koneru loses with black All the best for tomorrow with White

[ajay]

I hope she will comse strong tomorrow and force a tie-breaker. At this stage it will be very disheartning not to play the finals. Go Koneru!!!

[jaydeep]

Semi-Finals -
Yifan Hou (CHN,2557) - Humpy Koneru (IND,2622) 1-0
Alexsandra Kosteniuk (RUS,2510) - Pia Cramling (SWE,2544) 1-0

Yifan Hou continued her giant killing in this World Championship ... Yesterday she defeated Humpy, who played closed Ruy Lopez, in 55 moves ... Now top-seed Humpy having big task to win next game playing with black to give her chance in tie-break.

[Sandeep]

For the last two to three years Humpy always entered world championship either as a firm favourite or one of the favourites. Unfortunately she could never win the tournament. I thought this year would be different but looks like Humpy has to get back home with semifinals to her credit. I hope she proves me wrong though. It is tough in Chess to win with black that too when your opponent knows that a draw is enough for a finals berth! Go Humpy

[akmohanty]

Semi-Finals -
Yifan Hou (CHN,2557) - Humpy Koneru (IND,2622) 1-0
Alexsandra Kosteniuk (RUS,2510) - Pia Cramling (SWE,2544) 1-0

Yifan Hou continued her giant killing in this World Championship ... Yesterday she defeated Humpy, who played closed Ruy Lopez, in 55 moves playing with whites ... Now top-seed Humpy having big task to win next game playing with black to give her chance in tie-break.

That information is wrong. Humpy played with black yesterday and is playing with white today.

[jaydeep]

Thanks mohanty for pointing my mistake ... Yeah, yeserday Humpy played with blacks, updating my previous post.

Jaydeep

[akmohanty]

humpy has won the 2nd game. So, on to the TBs now hope she does well and comes through !!!

[ajay]

That's a great comeback by Humpy. Go girl!
When she needed it, she scored a victory. Next, she need to win the tiebreaker and enter Finals. As Sandeep pointed out that Humpy has earlier come here as favorite, but she could not get past the semifinals. Wishing her all the best to clear this hurdle this time and win the championship!

[jaydeep]

Excellent win by Humpy under pressure ... Now definitely advantage Humpy in tie-break ... C'mon Humpy ... Today Humpy came out with vengeance and dominated proceeding (as per report).

Koneru (India) came out with a slight advantage from the opening phase but could not find a strong continuation although she had to win after the loss of yesterday. Her Chinese opponent pushed the pawn to d5 and gave a chance for exchanging the light pieces which could have been a nice way for a possible draw. Koneru avoided the full exchange and took the risky Bb5 move after which her position started to gradually loose momentum and deteriorated.
In a worse position, Caissa run in to support her: Hou Yifan made a blunder with Na5, thus the position provided the chance for White to mate in 8 moves and Hou resigned after a few more moves. We are looking for a tie break tomorrow between Koneru, Humpy and Hou, Yifan.

Russian Alexsandra Kosteniuk reached final drawing second game.

[Sandeep]

What a win under extreme pressure. Go Humpy

[akmohanty]

Humpy has lost her first TB game with black . She is right now playing with white, under pressure to win .

[akmohanty]

She's managed to win with whites. Now, to the Chess 20-20 which is 5 min each, humpy starts with white. All the best