‘Judith Polgar and Hov Yifan were exceptions’: Koniro Hampi urges female chess players to play more ‘open’ tournaments | Chess news.

“There’s not going to be a lot of room for improvement until women start playing consistently in the open. And you have to work really hard to improve by playing in those open tournaments. I did it for a while before priorities changed. Judit Polgar and Hou Yifan were the exceptions,” he added.Although reigning women’s world champion Jo Wengen had a peak Elo rating of 2604 in March 2017, she currently sits at 2559. R Vaishali, his challenger, is at 2496.Hampi, 39, the first Indian woman to win a GM title, was one of the favorites to win the Candidates Tournament in Cyprus in March-April but withdrew due to security concerns amid uncertainty arising from the war in West Asia. “It’s more important that I love the game when I play the tournament. I shouldn’t feel that I’m putting my family or my loved ones under pressure when I’m traveling,” Hampi said.” Hampi said he took some time to decide only because it had a direct bearing on qualifying for the world title match. But he felt it was not right to withdraw quietly without explaining his feelings – indirectly suggesting that FIDE was insensitive to his withdrawal and that player safety should have been the top priority.Hampi preferred to call the rise of chess in the country the “Tamil Nadu boom” and felt that more players should come from other states. She chose not to comment further on the slip in the event of world champion D Gokesh or Vaishali qualifying for the women’s title match.Humpi said, “I don’t want to comment on any other player or any other situation because I too have experienced many things. I have seen the silence of the world when I am going through difficult situations. Maybe, sometimes, it is better to remain silent.”