K. Humpy, D. Harika and R. Vaishali will look to make the most of the opportunity to play in the third leg of the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix that opens at the Leela Hotel in New Delhi on Saturday.
Some of the leading women players are in the fray in their search to finish among the top two players from the four-leg Grand Prix and qualify for the next Candidates Tournament.
In all, 16 players are participating in this season’s Grand Prix circuit that allows each player to figure in three of the four tournaments.
The late withdrawal of the Muzychuk sisters - Anna and Mariya - allowed Vaishali and Georgia’s Nino Batsiashvili to join the field
The top seed is the World No. 3 Aleksandra Goryachkina. Other prominent challengers are, the reigning women’s world blitz champion Bibisara Assaubayeva and former world rapid and blitz champion Kateryna Lagno. Missing from the fray is the current Grand Prix points leader and former World champion Alexendra Kosteniuk.
Humpy and Harika, playing at home after the Chess Olympiad last year, have shown good form in the recent Candidates tournament.
In the second leg held in Munich, Humpy finished second while Harika was fourth. Both players skipped the first leg at Astana where Vaishali shared the sixth spot.
The time-control will be 90 minutes for the first 40 moves and another 30 minutes for the rest of the game. A 30-second increment gets added to the players’ clock for every completed move. The prize fund for each leg is 80,000 pounds.
The players: 1. Aleksandra Goryachkina (FIDE, 2576), 2. K. Humpy (2576), 3. Kateryna Lagno (FIDE, 2560), 4. Nana Dzagnidzer (Geo, 2525), 5. D. Harika (2511), 6. Zhansaya Abdumalik (Kaz, 2497), 7. Zhu Jiner (Chn, 2489), 8. Nino Batsiashvilli (Geo, 2489), 9. Polina Shuvalova (FIDE, 2484), 10. Elisabeth Paehtz (Ger, 2474), 11. Bibisara Assaubayeva (Kaz, 2440), 12. R. Vaishali (2433).
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