The Hindu : Sport : Humpy shocks Berkes

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 24, 2004

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Sport

Humpy shocks Berkes

By Stan Rayan

Koneru Humpy who upset the boys' top seed Ferenc Berkes of Hungary, in the World junior chess championship in Kochi on Tuesday. — Photo: Mahesh Harilal

KOCHI, NOV. 23. With the junior Worlds at the halfway mark Koneru Humpy, the lone girl in the boys' field here, began making decisive moves. She came up with an attacking 35-move victory over the top-seeded Ferenc Berkes at the Casino Hotel here on Tuesday. It was the championship's biggest upset and the Hungarian is rated 127 points above Humpy in the FIDE list.

Her mission accomplished, the 14th-seeded Humpy quickly left the stage, perhaps to plan her strategy for the next round. Just 17, Humpy is currently the World women's No. 6 and girls' No. 2. She had won the girls' Worlds a couple of years ago and has now set her eyes on the boys' crown.

Meanwhile, Berkes was quite upset with the loss, his second in seven rounds. "I played very badly," he said. The last meeting between the two had ended in a draw two years ago.

Berkes, like a majority of the players today, was a bit late for the match. Playing white, Humpy opened with the queen pawn and the Hungarian went for the Benoni. The Indian castled on the queen-side and took her chances with a king-side attack. Berkes defended poorly and was forced to pay the price. "The opening was equal but the middle game was difficult. I made a lot of mistakes," he said.

With 5.5 points from seven rounds, Humpy is just behind the three leaders, India's P. Harikrishna, Armenian Tigran L. Petrosian and China's Zhao Jun, all with six points. She faces her State-mate Harikrishna in the next round.

Harikrishna was forced to a draw by Poland's Radoslaw Wojtaszek, the under-18 World champion on the top board. The Pole has now managed to gain crucial half points from both the top two seeds.

Important results (seventh round, Indians unless stated): Boys: P. Harikrishna (6) drew with Radoslaw Wojtaszek (Pol, 5), Tigran L. Petrosian (Arm, 6) bt Evgeny Alekseev (Rus, 5), Erwin l'Ami (Ned, 4.5) lost to Zhao Jun (Chn, 6), Koneru Humpy (5.5) bt Ferenc Berkes (Hun, 4.5), Mark Paragua (Phi, 4) lost to David Smerdon (Aus, 5), M.R. Venkatesh (4.5) drew with Timur Gareyev (Uzb, 4.5), Yunieski Quezada Perez (Cub, 4.5) drew with Oliver Barbosa (Phi, 4.5), Yuri Drozdovsky (Ukr, 4.5) drew with Vlad-Cristian Jianu (Rom, 4.5), Deep Sengupta (4.5) bt Artem Iljin (Rus, 3.5), Arghyadip Das (3.5) lost to Mateusz Bartel (Pol, 4.5), Zhe Quan (Can, 4) drew with Pablo Lafuente (Arg, 4), Giampaolo Bucchicchio (Ita, 3.5) lost to Elshan Moradiabadi (Ira, 4.5), Tikkanen Hans (Swe, 4) drew with Abhijeet Gupta (4), Deepan Chakravarthy (4.5) bt Balind Nadj Hadjesi (Scg, 3.5), Poobesh Anand (4.5) bt Grigor Grigorov (Bul, 3.5).

Girls: Elisabeth Paehtz (Ger, 5.5) drew with Ekaterina Korbut (Rus, 5), Dana Aketayeva (Kaz, 4.5) lost to Anna Ushenina (Ukr, 6), Saheli Nath (5) bt Alina Motoc (Rom, 4), Eesha Karavade (Ind, 5) bt Tania Sachdev (Ind, 4), Shaesteh Ghader Pour (Ira, 4.5) drew with Zhang Jilin (Chn, 4.5), Joanna Majdan (Pol, 4) lost to N. Vinuthna (4.5), J.E. Kavitha (4.5) bt Koneru Chandra Hawsa (3.5), Anastasiya Gutsko (Ukr, 3) lost to Paloma C. Gutierrez (Esp, 4), I. Ramyakrishna (3) lost to Marlies Bensdorp (Ned, 4), N. Raghavi (Ind, 4) bt Jennifer R. Perez (Cub, 3), Siti Zulaikha (Mas, 4) bt Anuprita Patil (Ind, 3).

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