World Rapid chess: Amazing comeback by Indian queen

Again, at the 2015 World Championship, she was the top seed, but lost in the quarter-finals to Maria Muzychuk of Ukraine, the eventual champion. Humpy, like Anand, was not a product of the system. Her father Koneru Ashok, a former National B player, was her coach for a long time. Right from the time when she won the World Under-12 Championship, she was trained to go for the bigger battles.

At 15, she became a (men’s) Grandmaster, the first from India. And since then, she has always been on top in big FIDE tournaments, especially in the Grand Prix events. And it was a Grand Prix tournament win three months ago that marked her comeback to top-flight chess. She won the Women’s Grand Prix in Skolkovo, Russia. She took the lead after the ninth round and didn’t look back. The Indian scored eight points from 11 games with five wins and six draws.

Curiously, her World Rapid win also came in Russia and the 32-year-old was delighted to surprise the world. “Yes, I am really excited with this victory. It was a dramatic tie-break because I lost the first game with white without much fight. I couldn’t adjust to the new time control right away,” she said.

“After that, it was a desperate situation for me. I had to win with black and I chose the Modern (Defence). Of course, it is not a good opening, but I have played it many times and I went for it because I just had to gamble. The final game was quite clean. I didn’t have any problems in the opening and I was completely winning but since a draw was enough I just repeated the moves.”

Humpy called her husband immediately after the win. “Yes, I wasn’t sure if they were following the tie-breaks or not. But it turned out they were following everything and they are of course very happy. It is indeed time for celebration for me and my family since this is my first World title,” she said and added that she wanted to be with her daughter as soon as possible.

Probably, Humpy is playing without the weight of expectations now. She was expected to win the title in the Classical format, but could not do it and now that she is free from the tough and rough World championship battles, she is making rapid progress.