North Urals Cup: Humpy wins, Xu Yuhua second
15.07.2005
– The North Urals Cup 2005, a super-tournament for female players, ended in victory for Indian GM Humpy Koneru. Second was another Asian, Xu Yuhua from China, third the Russian Women's Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk. Humpy is slowly emerging as an extraordinary figure in women's chess, quite on the lines of Judit Polgar. Illustrated report.
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Nigel Davies:
A busy person’s opening system
Players with interests and commitments away from the chess board often find it difficult to compete against those with more study time. Their opponents come to the board armed with the latest theory and can bash out moves well into the middle game. On this DVD Nigel Davies addresses this issue by demonstrating a simple and easy to learn opening system designed for the busy person.
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The North Urals Cup 2005, the third international super-tournament for female
chess players, was held in Krasnoturinsk,
and ended in victory for two non-Russian players. First place went to Humpy
Koneru, who scored 6/9 with a 2605 performance.
The winner: Koneru Humpy, 18-year-old GM from India
Humpy is a former child prodigy who in 2002 became the youngest
female grandmaster (precisely: the first women fulfilling the gender-neutral
"men's" norms) in history. Since she is bound to appear more and more
on the international chess circuit we would do well to explain once again her
name to the chess public.
The young lady's first name is Humpy, her surname is Koneru. That is how FIDE
lists her. The surname is actually her father's first name, and theoretically
you should call her Ms Humpy if you address her formally (her friends will simply
call her Humpy). Referring to her as "Koneru" in reports is quite
strange. The father is a chess player called Koneru Ashok. He chose the name
for his daughter from the word "Champion", having had a vision that
one day she would become the World Chess Champion. Subsequently, he has changed
it to Humpy, to make it sound Russian.
Humpy receiving the trophy from Alexander Aminov
Second place with 5.5/9 points and a 2570 performance went to Xu Yuhua of China,
who beat the Russian Women's champion Alexandra Kosteniuk on 1.25 tiebreak points.
Second on tiebreak points: Xu Yuhua from China
Alexandra Kosteniuk scored 5.5/9 with a performance rating of 2566. Recent
results have shown that this lady, the tenth female grandmaster in history,
is playing at about this strength, though her FIDE rating is still "only"
2516.
Alexandra Kosteniuk gets a beautiful second prize vase
Other participants in the audience
A final stage ceremony for the participants and guests
Final Standings
Picture gallery
The official web site
has a lot of excellent photos, all provided by Vadim Smalkov. Here is a small
selection – in many cases you can click on the pictures to get Vadim's
high-resolution originals. At the bottom of the page you will find links to
sources where you can find many more pictures. Only a small number of them are
captioned, so you must guess who or what is shown in them.
Third on the final table: Russian Women's champ Alexandra Kosteniuk
The Kosintseva sisters Nadezhda, 20 (front) and
Tatiana, 19, who came in fourth and fifth
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