Nagpur: Experienced Grandmaster and world No. 5 Koneru Humpy made China’s 19-year-old Yuxin Song dance to her tunes to enter the semifinals of the FIDE Women’s Chess World Cup in Batumi, Georgia, on Sunday.Humpy split the point with young Song in 53 moves in the second game to clinch the quarterfinal contest 1.5-0.5 and set her semifinal date with an experienced Chinese GM and top seed, Lei Tingjie. The world No.3, Tingjie, ended the campaign of Georgia’s Nana Dzagnidze with a 2-0 triumph.Tingjie utilised her opening advantage with the white pieces to register a hard-fought 72-move victory and entered the semifinal in style by winning both her games in the classical format.The battle between Divya Deshmukh and D Harika, ended in an entertaining 60-move draw. The quarterfinal will now be decided in the tiebreaks to be played in the rapid and blitz formats with different time controls.Another India-China clash saw a marathon game where China’s world No.8 Tan Zhongyi ended Vaishali Rameshbabu’s campaign. In a marathon 88-move Semi-Slav defense, Vaishali failed to defend with her black pieces, losing the second game and bowing out of the quarterfinals 0.5-1.5.The contest between an experienced Indian GM and China’s young International Master (IM) saw a Queen’s Pawn Opening game of Chigorin Variation, with Humpy defending an unusual position where Song lined up her pawns by the 19th move. Aiming to come out of that unusual position, Humpy brought her rook into the field and made a dubious move on the 32nd turn. The position protecting Song’s citadel remained the same until the 35th turn when Humpy checked her Chinese opponent, and both exchanged their queens.Humpy then utilised the services of her attacking pawn while bringing her rook into a better position. With Humpy all set to become two pawns up, both players repeated their moves, and the game ended in a draw.Humpy said, “It feels happy to qualify for the semifinal without playing tiebreaks. I could have played better, but in time trouble, I slipped. I will utilise the rest day in preparing as my semifinal is going to be very tough. Being a top seed, she is one of the strongest opponents.”In the battle of compatriots, defending with her black pieces against an experienced Harika was always a tough task for Divya. The 19-year-old came under severe time trouble, and despite an advancing pawn in an equal position with both having a rook and three pawns at the 42nd turn, Divya had to take more time to bail herself out. She did that by bringing her king to the centre, and both were left with a rook and two pawns in the endgame.Though Divya became a pawn up on the 52nd turn, she was severely low on time, and Harika had placed her king in a better position. Within the next eight moves, both Divya and Harika signed the peace treaty to head into the tiebreaks for a place in the semifinals.India No. 3 and 15th ranked Vaishali suffered a heartbreaking defeat against China No. 4, Tan. For the second successive day, Vaishali and Tan played out a lengthy game and were the last to finish their contest.
