Another good show on chessboard by India though no title this time

Of the 12 medals on offer at the World rapid and blitz chess championships in Doha, India claimed three. That is not bad, but last year India had a title – Koneru Humpy had won the World rapid championship, and this time around she had to settle for bronze.

Both the other two bronzes were won by Arjun Erigaisi. In the blitz event on Tuesday, he had topped the Swiss league, scoring 15 points from 19 rounds, that is one point more than Magnus Carlsen, but he lost in the semifinal to Nodirbek Abdusattorov in the semifinal.

Carlsen had finished second in the league from which the top four made it to the knock-out phase, in which he defeated Fabiano Caruana. It was indeed a superb show by the World No. 1 from Norway. He proved yet again that he was in a class of his own, as he bounced back after a defeat to Arjun in the ninth round, and won the final against Abdusattorov.

The 38-year-old Humpy had come close to defending her crown, but in the final round, a wrong bishop move destroyed her dreams. And that was in a game against another Indian – B. Savitha Shri, who had won the bronze in 2022 when Humpy won her first World rapid championship.

After drawing that game – a win would have given Humpy the title – Savitha went on to finish fourth. The Indian women, however, disappointed in the blitz event, which was won for the third time by Kazakhstan’s Bibisara Assaubayeva, who defeated Anna Muzychuk, in the final

The highest-placed Indian was Divya Deshmukh, who finished 22nd, while Humpy was 23rd.