Humpy, Harika Start Well
By Arvind Aaron
 

The World Women's Championship is on at Kabardino-Balkaria in Russia from Aug 28-Sep 18. With war raging between Russia and Georgia this is perhaps the wrong time for this event. Seven players received walk overs with several time champion Maya Chiburdanidze (champion from 1978-1991) of Tbilisi and all Georgians absent. Georgia is a known powerhouse of world chess with most world champions coming from there. Two pairings have both players from Georgia absent and since the draw is knock out, walkover will also visit round two. The 64-player World Women's Championship will be remembered for this. Xu Yuhua of China is the top seed though Koneru Humpy is higher rated yet second seed.

India had a good opening day with title hopes Humpy, Harika winning with the black pieces against Yorsa Alaa El Din of Egypt and Nebolsina Vera of Russia. Harika's win is more creditable since it was a match between the two world junior girls champions of 2007 and 2008. Harika, the present champion won to take a 1-0 lead in the best of two.

The two other Indians, Tania Sachdev and Nisha Mohota did not win. Tania drew with black and Nisha lost. Tania seed 28 drew Tan Zongyi of China who is seed 37. Nisha seed 42 lost to seed 23 Nadezhda Kosintseva of Russia. All four Indians started their opening games with black and should get white in the reverse games. It is a best of two match. Winners advance to round two. The winner will become World Women's Champion.

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