Need more chess events for women in India, says GM Koneru Humpy

Koneru Humpy on Thursday highlighted the need to organise more chess events for women in the country to ensure a greater pool of players

Dubai: India’s former World Rapid Chess Champion Koneru Humpy on Thursday highlighted the need to organise more chess events for women in the country to ensure a greater pool of players.

The 36-year-old Indian Grandmaster added that lack of adequate financial support is among the challengers that chess players face, in order to compete on the big stage.

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“If I take India’s case, I still feel that compared to the boys, the number of women players is quite less. There needs to be more tournaments for women in India, especially for young girls,” Humpy was quoted as saying in a press release.

Humpy, who won the individual and mixed team gold medals at the 2006 Asian Games, said players must be provided with proper training once their talent is unearthed.

“Once they find the talent, they should pick them up and train them. Training plays an important role in growing the pool of talented players in any sport. Probably we need to work in the direction to increase the number of women players. Once that happens, probably the talent will come up slowly,” Humpy said.

“I believe in any sport if the financial support is high, more people will get attracted to it. Even when IPL started, we see the amounts going higher every year and I believe it is the same for every sport,” she added.

Speaking about the overall state of women’s chess, Chinese Grandmaster and four-time Women’s World Chess Champion Hou Yifan said, “The general situation of women’s chess has evolved dramatically in the past few decades.” “I remember when I was young, most of the events for women will only be FIDE official events and very few invitational events. Even for some open events, the chances for women players to win it weren’t as good as today.” The two GMs are currently participating in the Global Chess League, which has male and female chess champions competing in the same team.

“In the past few years, there are more organisers and sponsors paying attention to women’s chess. There are stronger women players in the open chess tournaments,” Yifan said.

“I hope that there will be a more promising attitude towards women’s chess and I also hope that because of our performance and experience, it will encourage more young girls to get involved with chess,” she added.