Humpy cruises to quarterfinals; Harika loses to Kostenuik

SOCHI (Russia): Continuing with her winning ways, Indian Grandmaster Koneru Humpy cruised into the quarterfinals of the World Women's Chess Championship after defeating Russian GM Alisa Galliamova in the second game of the third round here on Wednesday.
Having taken the lead of a full point coming into the return game, Humpy just needed a draw in the second game to proceed further in the championship, but the Indian did not take things likely and scored what turned out to be her sixth win in a row.
The other Indian in the fry, Dronavalli Harika suffered a setback as she lost her return game against Alexandra Kosteniuk with white pieces. Harika's fate in the championship now hangs in balance as she needs to take part in the tiebreak games to determine the winner.
Apart from Kosteniuk, Natalija Pogonina of Russia also made a comeback by winning the second game after losing the first. Up against Marie Sebag of France, Pogonina leveled the scores by winning with white pieces to force the tiebreaker.
Humpy is the only one maintaining an-all win record and the top ranked Indian has not played a single tiebreaker here. Playing black against Galliamova, Humpy did not deter from entering complications even though she just needed a half point.
It was a surprising opening choice by Galliamova as she went for a symmetrical structure from a Queen pawn opening and went for the risky hanging pawns structure while looking to complicate matters.
Humpy did not miss the chance and ripped apart the queen side with a thematic breakthrough in the middle game and after the queens got traded, it was just a worse endgame for the Russia. Not giving any further chances to her Russian counterpart, Humpy wrapped the issue in 53 moves after entering a pawn plus rook and pawns endgame.
Kosteniuk played ultra-flexible Black Knights' Tango, where white could not just force simplification. Harika could boast of a slight advantage out of the opening but the complications remained.
Desperately seeking equality, Harika went for a couple of wrong exchanges that allowed black to seize the initiative in the center. With a blocked pawn structure, Harika could do little as black's pieces became active and launched an attack on the king. Once the game entered the queen and rooks endgame, her position was beyond repairs.
Ukrainian duo of Mariya Muzychuk and Anna Muzychuk also moved to the quarterfinals along with Zhao Xue of China and Pia Cramling of Sweden,
Results of Round 3 Game 2: Koneru Humpy (Ind) beat Alisa Galliamova (Rus) 2-0; Marie Sebag (Fra) lost to Natalija Pogonina (Rus) 1-1 goes to tiebreak; Anna Muzychuk (Ukr) drew with Lela Javakhishvili (Geo) 1.5-0.5; Meri Arabidze (Geo) drew with Viktorija Cmilyte (Ltu) 1-1 goes to tiebreak; Alexandra Kosteniuk (Rus) beat D Harika (Ind) 1-1 goes to tiebreak; Pia Cramling (Swe) beat Valentina Gunina (Rus) 1.5-0.5; Zhao Xue (Chn) beat Bela Khotenashvili (Geo) 1.5-0.5; Antoaneta Stefanova (Bul) lost to Mariya Muzychuk (Ukr) 0.5-1.5.
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