Divya Deshmukh takes unexpected lead in FIDE Women’s Grand Prix Pune
Pune: Divya Deshmukh was frank enough to admit that it was not a real victory. Clearly, R Vaishali was off-colour and lost the plot. In the process, wild card and home-state entry Divya took a somewhat unexpected lead with her second successive win in the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix on Tuesday.
It needed only 26 moves and less than 50 minutes for the 19-year-old to clinch the issue. Zhu Jiner outplayed Batkhuyag Munguntuul of Mongolia with black pieces to eked out a win and join Divya as joint leader. In a dynamic, tense position of Ruy Lopez Tarrasch variation, Vaishali playing black, could not find Re8 on the 17th move and played a misplaced attack on the rival queen with Bg3.
The queen exchange was almost forced. And with Divya set to win a rook via discovered check some moves later, Vaishali resigned. “It’s not a real win,” Divya told the FIDE channel. Results (Round 2): Divya Deshmukh 2 pts bt R Vaishali 0.5; Batkhuyag Munguntuul 1 lost to Zhu Jiner 2; Melia Salome 0.5 drew with K Humpy 1; Polina Shuvalova 1.5 drew with Nurgyul Salimova 0.5; D Harika 0.5 drew with Alina Kashlinskaya 0.5.
