Koneru Humpy in sole lead

Top seed Grandmaster Koneru Humpy scored a crushing victory over Elina Danielian of Armenia to jump in to the sole lead in the second round of IS Bank Ataturk FIDE Grand Prix chess tournament in Istanbul.

Humpy cruised home in style with a blend of positional and tactical chess and changing gears when needed in the almost lop-sided encounter.

With her second victory on the trot after beating GM Pia Cramling in the opener, Humpy took her tally to 2 points out of a possible 2 and steered a half point clear of former world champion Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria, Martha Baquero Fierro of Ecuador and Chinese duo of Yifan Hao and Zhao Xue who all have 1.5 points.

Former world champion Maia Chiburdanidze of Georgia, Elina and Pia Cramling now share the sixth spot on one point in this 12-players round-robin tournament which is a part of the next world championship cycle.

The total prize pool is 40000 Euros.

Humpy, playing white, went for the English opening and faced the Symmetrical set up by Elina.

The game moved along known territories for a short while only as Humpy got a slight advantage after Elina's hasty bid to secure parity did not come good.