Humpy loses to Yifan in World Championships

Looking good after the first two of the 10-game match, Humpy went for an erroneous plan and Yifan cashed in to go one up. The scoreline now reads 2-1 in the favour of the Chinese 17-year old.

With seven games still to come, Humpy will now be under pressure especially as her loss came with white pieces. The Indian will have to device new ways to tackle Yifan as the wild complications did not work in the third game.

The Queen pawn opening by Humpy did not see another Catalan and Yifan went for a complicated variation right from the beginning.

Typical of the system, Yifan had weaknesses on the king side and her king itself looked a bit vulnerable as the game progressed.

In the middle game, Humpy went for a pawn sacrifice on the queen side to pursue her attack on the other flank but Yifan, who calculates deep, had judged well that the attack was only optical.

By the 25th move, it was clear that white should have looked towards equalise but a mistake here turned the tide decisively in the favour of the Chinese.

Humpy recovered the lost pawn at a huge concession of giving black a central passed pawn and it was all over in quick time thereafter. Yifan won in 37 moves.

"I took my time to think about taking the pawn on 'a2'. My king could get in trouble, but I decided to go for this principal continuation," said Yifan.

"I had a good position, but I was not making good moves," Humpy said on her play in the middle game.

The fourth game of the euro 2,00,000 Championship will be played before the second rest day. Humpy will now have to play two black games in a row.

The moves: (K Humpy – Yifan Hou) 1. d4 e6 2. c4 Nf6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. cxd5 exd5 6. Bg5 h6 7. Bh4 c5 8. e3 c4 9. Be2 g5 10. Bg3 Ne4 11. Rc1 Qa5 12. Ne5 Bxc3+ 13. bxc3 Nc6 14. O-O O-O 15. Bf3 Nxg3 16. fxg3 Nxe5 17. dxe5 Be6 18. Bh5 Qxa2 19. Rf6 Qb2 20. Rxh6 Bf5 21. Rf6 Be4 22. Bf3 Bd3 23. Qe1 Rae8 24. Bxd5 Rxe5 25. e4 Kg7 26. Rf2 Qb6 27. Qd2 Rd8 28. Qb2 f5 29. Qxb6 axb6 30. Bxb7 fxe4 31. Rb2 Re7 32. Bc6 Rd6 33. Ba4 e3 34. Re1 e2 35. Bc2 Rf7 36. Bxd3 cxd3 37. Rd2 Rdf6 white resigned.