Koneru Humpy hints at board preference for Olympiad amid recent form struggles

Koneru Humpy, India’s top-ranked woman chess player, was unwilling to state her preferred board number for Team India at the Olympiad. Nor did she say that she would play according to the wishes of the team or captain. But she dropped enough hints. “I have played a few Olympiads and have always played on board one. For many years, we have been following the rating procedure for maintaining the board order. I don’t know how they are going to look at it this year,” Humpy told TOI from Vijayawada on Monday. Top seeds India are set to defend their gold medal in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, starting Sept 16. Humpy finished eighth with 3.5 points in the nine-round classical Cairns Cup in St Louis, USA. But her Norway Chess campaign in May-June, where she finished sixth and last, was particularly disappointing. “It’s not so comfortable to enter into the Olympiad in such a scenario,” said Humpy. “I'm just waiting to get back in good shape. I was a bit rusty but it happens to every player. You’ll be in that bad phase and then you’ll come out of it.

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” On her poor run in Norway, Humpy said, “I played the tournament after a very long gap. Nothing went according to my plans. This year was disturbing. I was also a bit upset with the off-the-board things and probably that also reflected in the way I played.” Humpy withdrew from the Candidates tournament in Cyprus after FIDE turned down her request to shift the eight-player women’s world championship qualifier to a safer venue, citing security concerns arising from the war in West Asia. “I think I’m fine now,” she said. “Probably, it did disturb me for a few months. Like, it’s not easy for a player who has been professional and working towards it and then taking all the negativity. So it did affect me. I spent many sleepless nights as well. But for the last month or so, I have been in better shape.