Koneru Humpy (born 31 March 1987) is an Indianchessgrandmaster. Humpy is a runner-up of theWomen's World Chess Championship and the reigning two-timeWomen's World Rapid Chess Champion.^[1][2] In 2002, she became the youngest female player ever, and the firstIndian female player, to achieve the title ofGrandmaster, aged 15 years, 1 month, 27 days, a record only since surpassed byHou Yifan.^[3][4] Humpy is a gold medalist at theOlympiad,Asian Games, andAsian Championship.^[5]

Koneru Humpy
Humpy in 2012
Country	India
Born	(1987-03-31)31 March 1987 (age 38) Gudivada, Andhra Pradesh, India
Title	Grandmaster (2002)
FIDE rating	2528 (March 2025)
Peak rating	2623 (July 2009)

In October 2007, Humpy became the second female player, afterJudit Polgár, to exceed the 2600Elo rating mark, being rated 2606.^[6][7]

Humpy won theWomen's World Rapid Chess Championship in2019 and2024.

Humpy won three gold medals at theWorld Youth Chess Championship: in 1997 (under-10 girls' division), 1998 (under-12 girls) and 2000 (under-14 girls). In 1999, at the Asian Youth Chess Championship, held inAhmedabad, she won the under-12 section, competing with the boys.^[8] In 2001 Humpy won theWorld Junior Girls Championship. In the following year's edition, she tied for first place withZhao Xue, but placed second on tiebreak.^[9] She became theeighth woman to earn the Grandmaster title in 2002, and the first Indian female player^[10] and the youngest female player to do so. She earned her first GM norm at the Hotel Lipa International in June 2001. Her second GM norm was at the 3rd Saturday GM tournament, which she won, in October 2001. She made her final GM norm in the Elekes Memorial, also tying for first place.^[11] Humpy competed with the boys in the 2004 World Junior Championship, which was won byPentala Harikrishna and tied for fifth place, finishing tenth on countback with a score of 8.5/13 points.^[12]

Humpy won theBritish Women's Championship in 2000 and in 2002. In 2003, she won the 10thAsian Women's Individual Championship and theIndian Women's Championship.^[13][14] In 2005, she won the North Urals Cup, around-robin tournament held inKrasnoturyinsk, Russia featuring ten of the strongest female players in the world at the time.^[15]

She participated in theWomen's World Chess Championship for the first time in2004 and since then, she has competed in every edition of the event held with theknockout format. Humpy reached the semifinals in 2004,2008 and2010.

In 2009, she tied for 1st–4th withAlexander Areshchenko,Magesh Panchanathan andEvgenij Miroshnichenko in theMumbai Mayor Cup.^[16]

In 2009, Humpy accused theAll India Chess Federation of preventing her from participating in the37th Chess Olympiad inTurin.^[17][18] Her father Koneru Ashok, who was coaching her, was not allowed to travel with her for tournaments.

Humpy took part in theFIDE Women's Grand Prix 2009–2011 and finished in overall second position, in turn qualifying as challenger forWomen's World Chess Championship 2011.^[19][20] Hou Yifan won the match, winning three games and drawing five. Humpy finished runner-up in the FIDE Women's Grand Prix series also in the2011–12,2013–14,2015–16 and2019–21 editions.

She won the individual bronze at the Women'sWorld Team Chess Championship 2015 held inChengdu, China. Team India finished fourth in the competition – a point behind China, which won the bronze medal.^[21]

In 2019, she became women's World Rapid champion after coming back from a two-year maternity sabbatical.^[22]

In 2020, Humpy won the BBC Indian Sportswoman of the year award, following a public vote.^[23]

Humpy competed at the 2022 Chess Olympiad as part of the women's India team, which achieved a bronze medal.^[24]

In 2023, Humpy was the runner up in the World Rapid championships.^[25]

In 2024, Humpy became the World Rapid champion for the second time in her career.^[26]

Koneru Humpy was born inGudivada,Andhra Pradesh, on 31 March 1987.^[27] She was originally named "Hampi" by her parents, Koneru Ashok and Koneru Latha,^[28] who derived the name from the word champion. Her father later changed the spelling to Humpy, to more closely resemble a Russian-sounding name.^[29][30] She was coached in chess at a young age by her father Ashok after he discovered her talent when she suggested a move as played out by a game fromThe Chess Informator. It was 1993, and Humpy was six-years-old then. In the same year, Humpy won theVijayawada city andKrishna district under-eight championships. She won the State-level championships in 1994 and 1995 and qualified for the national under-eight championship for girls inMadurai in 1995, where she finished fourth. From that year, her father started coaching her exclusively. She would then go on to win the national under-10 championship for girls in 1996 inMumbai, which led to a qualification for the 1997 World Under-10 Girls Chess Championship atCannes, France, which she would go on to win.^[27]

In August 2014, Humpy married Dasari Anvesh.^[31] They have a daughter together named Ahana (b. 2017).^[32] Since 2016, Humpy has been working withOil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC).^[33]

• 1999: Asia's youngest Woman International Master (WIM)
• 2001: India's youngest Woman Grandmaster (WGM)
• 2012: Bronze at Women'sWorld Rapid Chess Championship
• 2019: Skolkovo Women's Grand Prix 2019–20
• 2019: Monaco Women's Grand Prix 2019–20
• 2019: Women'sWorld Rapid Chess Championship^[34]
• 2020: Gold atCairns Cup^[35]
• 2020: Silver at Speed Chess Championship
• 2020: Gold atFIDE Online Chess Olympiad 2020
• 2021: Bronze atFIDE Online Chess Olympiad 2021
• 2022: Bronze at44th Chess Olympiad
• 2022: Gaprindashvili Cup Team Winner at44th Chess Olympiad
• 2022: Silver at Women'sWorld Blitz Chess Championship 2022
• 2023: Silver at Global Chess LeagueGlobal Chess League
• 2023: Silver at Women'sTata Steel India Chess Tournament Blitz
• 2024: Silver at Women's Candidates TournamentWomen's Candidates Tournament 2024
• 2024: Winner of theWorld Rapid Chess Championship^[2]

• 2003:Arjuna Award
• 2007:Padma Shri^[36]
• 2021:BBC Indian Sportswoman of the Year
• 2021: Sportstar Aces Sportswoman of the Decade (Individual non-Olympic Sports)
• 2022: Player of the Chess Tournament at PSPB Inter-unit Chess and Bridge Tournament (Mumbai)

• List of chess grandmasters

• Humpy Koneru player profile and games atChessgames.com
• Humpy Koneru chess games at 365Chess.com
• Koneru Humpy chess games at 365Chess.com (1997–2000)
• Interview with GM Humpy Humpy by LastChess.com
• "Interview with Super-Grandmaster Koneru Humpy".ChessBase News. 12 December 2007.