Koneru Humpy is an Indian Grandmaster who is known for her playing style and winning the World Rapid Chess Championship in 2020 after taking a break for 2 years from Chess. She was born on Mar 31st, 1987 in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, India. With a current world ranking of 204 and Classical Elo rating of 2586, she is one of the best ever to play the game of chess and an inspiration to many women from India and across the world to take up chess professionally.
Chess Career:
Koneru Humpy got interested in chess from 5 by watching her father play the game. Later her father trained her and soon she was district champion in 1993, when she was just 6. By 1995 she was national chess champion in the under-8 category, followed by winning all the under-10, 12, and 15 competitions in 1996. She also bagged the World Youth Championship in Under-10 category in 1996 and Under-12 category in 1998. By 11 years, Koneru Humpy was already making her mark in the chess world by her extraordinary games and tournaments. She bagged almost all youth championship trophies in chess by winning two more in under 15 and junior category in 2000 and 2001 to establish herself as a chess prodigy to the world.
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Koneru Humpy, once again bamboozled the chess world by achieving Grandmaster title at 15 years 1 month age, in 2002 breaking the record of Judit Polgar to become then the youngest ever to achieve it. This record was broken by Hou Yifan in 2008 and now she is the youngest to achieve this milestone. She was eligible to participate in the Women's World Chess Championship in 2004 and was defeated by IM Ekaterina Kovalevskaya in semifinals. She won the North Urals Cup in 2005 which had top 10 chess players from around the world play against each other and she won against Kosteniuk and GM Xu Yuhua with a half point lead. She then became only second player to cross Elo rating of 2600 after Judit Polgar in 2007.
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Koneru Humpy has achieved almost what all a chess prodigy could achieve as a junior in the chess world. After 2008, she was eligible for Women's World Chess Championship and she was ready to add more feathers to her crown by winning many other tournaments in chess from around the world. She competed for world title, but lost at semifinals twice. She also was runner up in Women's Chess Grandprix for a record four consecutive editions. She was also a major team player for India in many cups and tournaments across the world and had won for the team in many occassions. Koneru Humpy took a break from Chess in 2016 to give birth to her child and take care of her.
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In 2018, she was back at competitive chess, and played Chess Olympiad in September 2018, helping her team secure 8th position of 151 teams. In 2019, Koneru won Women's World Rapid Chess Championship, and gained the attention of chess fraternity from all around the world. She also won the Cairns Cup in 2020 and had a great come back after the break she took. According to Koneru, the break had given her a new perspective towards the way she looked at the tournaments. She had comeback stronger and is again ready to continue breaking and making records in the chess.
