Women's World Chess Championship 2012: Humpy off to Winning Start; Harika, Soumya Draw

KHANTY MANSIYSK (Russia) - Top rated Grandmaster Koneru Humpy has begun her campaign for the World Chess title with a win with Black over Denise Frick of South Africa in the first round on Sunday. Frick went for a crazy all-out attack on the Kingside down the h-file, but Humpy knew to handle it all with a forced Queen exchange and was never really in any serious trouble. The all-India match between Soumya Swaminathan and D Harika ended in a draw.

While there were no great surprises in the first game of the first round, the second game to be played on Monday is likely to bring many of the higher ranked under pressure as they drew. The list includes Harika who either has to win or force herself in to the tiebreaker the following day.

The championship is back to the knock out format wherein 64 top woman players across the globe take part fighting for a total prize pool of $450000. Humpy and Harika were ousted in the semis in the previous edition of the event. In the return game now, Humpy just needs a draw to advance to the next round.

Here are the full results of Round 1:

Abrahamyan, Tatev Kosteniuk, Alexandra ½-½Berezina, Irina Sebag, Marie ½-½Bodnaruk, Anastasia Javakhishvili, Lela 1-0Castrillon Gomez, Melissa Kosintseva, Nadezhda 0-1Cmilyte, Viktorija Aliaga Fernandez, Ingrid ½-½Cori T., Deysi Ushenina, Anna ½-½Danielian, Elina Khukhashvili, Sopiko 1-0Dembo, Yelena Khurtsidze, Nino ½-½Foisor, Cristina-Adela Muzychuk, Mariya ½-½Frick, Denise Koneru, Humpy 0-1Ghader Pour, Shayesteh Cramling, Pia 0-1Girya, Olga Rajlich, Iweta ½-½Gunina, Valentina Gu, Xiaobing 1-0Hou, Yifan Ranasinghe, S D 1-0Ju, Wenjun Pourkashiyan, Atousa 1-0Khotenashvili, Bela Arribas Robaina, Maritza 1-0Khoudgarian, Natalia Zhao, Xue 0-1Kosintseva, Tatiana Davletbayeva, Madina ½-½Kovalevskaya, Ekaterina Galliamova, Alisa ½-½Krush, Irina Li, Ruofan ½-½Lahno, Kateryna Mona, Khaled 1-0Lujan, Carolina Zatonskih, Anna ½-½Mkrtchian, Lilit Arakhamia-Grant, Ketevan 1-0Muzychuk, Anna Mezioud, Amina 1-0Ovod, Evgenija Hoang, Thanh Trang ½-½Pogonina, Natalija Matveeva, Svetlana ½-½Romanko, Marina Stefanova, Antoaneta 0-1Shen, Yang Huang, Qian 0-1Skripchenko, Almira Socko, Monika 0-1Soumya, Swaminathan Harika, Dronavalli ½-½Zhu, Chen Ziaziulkina, Nastassia 1-0Zhukova, Natalia Guo, Qi ½-½

Earlier, a grand ceremony marked the opening ceremony of the Women’s World Chess Championship.