WWC2011-1: 1st game ends in lengthy draw

The highly-anticipated world championship match between China’s Hou Yifan and India’s Koneru Humpy got underway today. The first of ten games began with the “Killer Catalan” which has become a serious weapon in several World Championship matches. Viswanathan Anand employed with great effect against Veselin Topalov. Perhaps Koneru got some coaching from Anand. She is working with Sandipan Chanda and was rather secretive about the rest of her team but certainly the World Champion has direct access to the Koneru camp.

Koneru played a rare move with 12.a4!? and proceeded to get a slight advantage in the middlegame. White had a space advantage and black never got the favorable position to play …c5. Going toward the ending, black had tremendous weaknesses on the queenside. Black had to sacrifice a pawn to gain some activity. The game ended in a 3 vs. 2 rook ending on the kingside. After shuffling around for a dozen moves white tries to breakthrough, but to no avail.

2011 Women’s World Chess Championship November 14th-27th, 2011 (Triana, Albania)
	Flag	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Pts.
Hou		½	½	1	½	½	1	1	½			5½
Koneru		½	½	0	½	½	0	0	½			2½