Chennai(Agencies):India's
International Master R Vaishali has qualified for the FIDE Chess.com Women's
Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix which begins later on Wednesday.
The Chennai player, sister of
young chess prodigy R Praggnanandhaa, joins India's top two players Koneru
Humpy and D Harika in the tournament. Hou Yifan and world champion Ju Wenju,
both Chinese, will also be part of the event.
While Humpy is among the
seeded players, Harika qualified for the event through the playoff qualifiers.
Vaishali, the Asian Blitz
Championship winner in 2017, will take on Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria while
Humpy meets Le Thao Nguyen Pham (Vietnam).
Vaishali said she was very
happy to qualify for the GP from the fifth qualifier.
"I am happy to have been
able to qualify for the GP. I participated in the first four qualifiers too and
managed to do so from the fifth (qualifier)," she told PTI.
She rated her win against
Alina Kashlinskaya in the qualifying event as her best, saying it gave her
confidence.
"The win against Alina Alina
Kashlinskaya was a good one and it gave me a lot of confidence," she
added.
Speaking about Vaishali
qualifying for the GP, her coach RB Ramesh praised the performance and said she
was good in blitz.
"It is a good thing. She
is generally very good in blitz and had won the Asian Blitz Championship in
2017 in China."
The Grand Prix will consist of
four legs, with a total of 21 participants. Each of the 21 players participates
in three out of four Grand Prix legs. Each GP is a 16-player knockout event and
the first one is from June 24 to 28.
In each Grand Prix leg, every
player scores cumulative grand prix points according to the position in the
final standings. The two players who score the highest number of cumulative
grand prix points in all three legs qualify for the Super Final to be held on
July 20.
Each one of the Grand Prix
legs has a total prize fund of $10,300 with $3,000 going to the winner.
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