Easy outing for Humpy in Women's World Chess Championship
Hari Hara Nandanan, TNN, Dec 6, 2010, 12.57am IST
CHENNAI: India had a mixed bag in the first game in the first round of the Women's World Chess Championship at Hatay ( Turkey) on Saturday. While favourite Koneru Humpy whipped Melissa Greeff, a South African rated 518 points below her on the Elo scale, Dronavalli Harika conceded a draw to compatriot Kruttika Nadig with white pieces, a result that puts the India No 2 in a must-win situation in the return game with black if she has to avoid tiebreaks in the first round.
In fact, Harika's draw was one of the two surprises in the first game of the first round as she is expected to pull off some surprises by virtue of her healthy 2525 rating.
The second surprise of the first day was credited to local girl Yildiz Betul Cemre, who held Grandmaster Pia Cramling of Sweden (2526) to a draw.
Not chess femme news, but interesting nonetheless. From Chessbase:
Rethinking top level chess – a mandatory move
05.12.2010 – Who is the strongest player in the world? Does the World Champion win his title in the most effective way? How much should we depend on the Elo rating system, and are there better alternatives for determining world rankings? After three years spent writing a PhD thesis on games and sports at the Paris-Sorbonne Manouk Borzakian turns his attention to chess in this thought-provoking paper.
Not mentioned is what I call, in women's chess, the "women's rating ghetto" effect of bunched - and low - ELOs. The same effect happens when the same elite male players face the same elite male players over and over again, blocking out those below from having a chance to compete and earn those valuable ELO points on the same level. Plus, it's damn borning.
From Chessbase
Report on First Game of R1, Women's World Chess Championship
2010 Women's World Chess Championship - Round one
05.12.2010
Glad to see Dylan Loeb McClain at The New York Times chess blog Gambit is featuring lots of articles about the chess femmes:
November 22, 2010, 1:08 am For Some Women, Russian Championship Is a Warm-up for World Championship
By DYLAN LOEB MCCLAIN
For 2nd Year, Younger Women Beat Older Men at Czech Event
By DYLAN LOEB McCLAIN
Published: December 4, 2010
Manager Blames Marriage for His Star’s Slump
By DYLAN LOEB McCLAIN
Published: November 27, 2010
Marriage seems to have hurt Veselin Topalov’s career, for now.
Topalov, 35, a former world champion who was ranked No. 1 in the world as recently as 14 months ago, has seen his ranking slide to No. 5.
His manager, Silvio Danailov, said in a recent interview with the Web site Chessdom.com that Topalov married a few months ago and was “enjoying life a little bit,” adding, “He is not motivated to play tournaments right now.”
His latest setback occurred at the Ajedrez UNAM Quadrangular tournament in Mexico City, which ended a week ago. It was a four-player rapid chess event.
Topalov easily won his semifinal match against Manuel Leon Hoyos of Mexico, 3.5 to 0.5. But in the final against Judit Polgar of Hungary, an opponent he was favored to beat, he was trounced, 3.5 to 0.5. In the last two games, he barely put up any resistance.
LOL! (That's my comment). Blame it on the new wife, heh? OHMYGODDESS!
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