Monaco Women's Grand Prix: Harika's dismal run continues; Humpy draws

GM Harika Dronavalli faced another loss at the third leg of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix in Monaco. Meanwhile, GM Koneru Humpy played out a solid draw against Elisabeth Paehtz on Wednesday.

With this draw, Humpy maintained her position at the top of the table alongside three more players whereas Harika remained at the last position after losing to Sara Khadem of Spain.

Harika's big blunder

Harika, with the black pieces, had a decent start to the game but a late blunder (Ne5) in move number 38, completely turned the match in the favour of Sara, resulting in the only decisive match of the day.

Harika, who has yet to open her account at the tournament, will be trying to do just that in the next round as she will return with white pieces against Kateryna Lagno of FIDE later tonight.

Solid draw for Humpy 

The reigning world rapid champion Koneru Humpy continued her solid game and played a 41-move draw against Elisabeth Paehtz of Germany.

Both players had a superb accuracy rate in the game, Queen's Gambit Accepted, with Humpy playing white pieces, maintained a 96.7 percent accuracy while Paehtz answered well with 97.1 percent accuracy.

In the next round, Humpy will take on the fellow joint-leader Batkhuyag Munguntuul of Mongolia whereas Paehtz to face in-form Sara Khadem of Spain.