Grandmaster Koneru Humpy displayed some brilliant attack to crash through the defence of World Cup Champion Xu Yuhua of China and win the first game of the quarter-finals in the Women's World Chess championship 2004 at City Chess Complex in Elista on Saturday.
With this win, Humpy inched closer to the semifinal berth as now she needs just a draw in the return game on Sunday in which the Chinese will have the white pieces.
The day produced some very exciting chess with not even a single draw in three matches so far. Former World Champion Maia Chiburdanidze of Georgia was in her element in outplaying Viktorija Cmilyte of Lithuania while Ketino Kachiani-G of Germany needed her share of luck to put it across Ekaterina Kovalevskaya of Russia.
The other quarterfinal match between Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria and World Junior girl's champion Nana Dzagnidze of Georgia was in progress with the former enjoying better position.
Humpy stole the limelight from everyone else with an exemplary display of attacking chess that witnessed Xu Yuhua crumbling.
It was a Queen's Indian defence and Humpy was well armed. "I prepared the middle position extensively as she had played something similar against Zhu Chen (reigning World Women Champion), and, in fact she played the opening very precisely and got a very reasonable position but her planning did not went right thereafter," said Humpy about the game.
The middle game was a delight to watch once Yuhua made a mistake on her 16th move as that only added more power to Humpy's eventual exploits as she went for a double pawn sacrifice to initiate the decisive onslaught.
"Yes I thought that she had left many holes and weaknesses in her position, the pawn sacrifices were not really planned but the situation demanded it and once my pieces got going all her pawns fell one after another," Humpy said.
Once the material balance shifted in Humpy's favour it was just a matter of time before the inevitable happened.
Xu Yuhua, who had beaten Humpy in the semifinals of the World Cup at Hyderabad in 2002, called it a day on her 36th turn.
Chiburdanidze defeated Cmilyte from the white side of another Queen's Indian albeit with a positional approach. The Georgian, who has not been playing much, opted for a safe but less played system and allowed Cmilyte to get an easy game.
However as the endgame surfaced after some routine exchanges, Chiburdanidze did a class act, penetrating the queenside with her queen and allowing an attack against her own king.
After the dust subsided, Cmilyte found that her attack was only optical and even though she had an extra piece to boast off, white was ready to promote a pawn to the queening square. The game lasted 42 moves.
Kovalevskaya played some harmless chess with white pieces against Kachiani and yet got a double edged position thanks to the ambition shown by her opponent. The complexities that ensued were mind-blowing but Kovalevskaya's calculations proved wrong as she failed to get any desirable compensation for her sacrificed rook.
Kachiani finsihed the game in style through a fine combination that won her white's queen on the 39th move.
Results of game 1 of the quarter-finals:
Koneru Humpy (Ind) beat Xu Yuhua (Chn);
Antoaneta Stefanova (Bul) playing Nana Dzagnidze (Geo);
Maia Chiburdanidze (Geo) beat Viktorija Cmilyte (Ltu);
Ekaterina Kovalevskaya (Rus) lost to Ketino Kachiani-G.
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