Humpy wins second GM norm

HYDERABAD, OCT. 29. Koneru Humpy became the first Indian woman to get the second men's Grandmaster norm when she went in for a quick ten move draw against GM Kosanovic Goran of Yugoslavia in the ninth round of the 3rd Saturday Grandmasters chess tournament in Belgrade according to information received here on Monday.

She now needs one more norm to join the elite list of WGMs who have become open GMs. The list includes players like Judit Polgar and Zsuzsa Polgar of Hungary, Jun Xie and Zhu Chen of China and Maia Chiburdanidze of Georgia.

Her achievement is even more praiseworthy considering the fact that she achieved her second norm in the ninth round of the eleven round tournament. Humpy will now play against Prelevic Dusko of Yugoslavia in the tenth round and Todorov Ognjan of Bulgaria in the eleventh and last round.

Despite draws in the eighth and ninth rounds, Humpy (being sponsored by Bank of Baroda) still leads the table with 7 points followed by Stojanovic Mihajlo (6.5) of Yugoslavia and Lopez Martinez (5.5) of Spain.

Humpy, coached by her father Ashok, may not be very articulate like other players but had won World championships in the under- 10, 12, and 14 categories.

She shot in prominence first when she won the under-10 title at Cannes in France and followed it up with the women's title in 2000, British chess champion and Asian champion.

Humpy slowly developed her game from the regular English Opening to Reti Opening and had her defence shifted to Queen's Indian Defence in Tarrasch Variation. Humpy, who has earlier said that she has to improve her openings and middle game, believes in analysing her performance after every game.

Humpy, who has recently developed a fancy for the Kasparov line of attack to surprise the rivals and is known to keep her cool even in deep crisis, rates Chinese players as the toughest opponents she has faced as they possess more endurance and are mentally very strong.

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