PUNE: The tide has turned positively for Andhra Pradesh’s women chess player Priyanka Nutakki. The 20-year-old Woman Grandmaster (WGM) has qualified for the FIDE knockout World Cup in her first attempt in New Delhi on Thursday.
The 11th seed finished behind champion PV Nandhidhaa in the Asian Continental chess meet. Only two players from the women’s meet booked their seats for the World Cup scheduled next year.
The runners-up spot - 6.5 points from nine games with six wins, two defeats and a draw - was particularly sweet coming immediately after the bitter experience of being expelled from the World Junior girls’ championship in Italy for accidentally forgetting to remove earbuds from her jacket pocket and carrying it the playing hall.
Earlier, she had also missed out on a spot in the India3 women’s chess team at the Olympiad as she dropped crucial Elo points at the wrong time.
“I lost some Elo points while playing in India which proved costly,” Priyanka told TOI.
That pushed her from the fifth to sixth spot in the women’s weighted rankings for the third India team in the biennial festival in Mamallapuram. Only the first five made the cut. Some by skipping tougher events in India and choosing to play easier events abroad with plenty of draws.
On the backdrop of these setbacks, Priyanka (Elo 2326) said, “This is a good comeback. I was determined to do well but was still taking one game at a time. I could have finished better. But I am improving gradually and overall happy with my effort. I qualified for my first Asian Continental as an official India entry after finishing third in the Women’s Nationals.”
On the cheating allegations being thrown in the chess world and an atmosphere of mistrust, she said, “It is unfortunate. But in hindsight, the strict checking of the players is good for the sport.”
Priyanka, who won the U-10 girls’ world youth event 2012, is coached by Swayam Mishra of Orissa.
She is playing in the Commonwealth championship in Sri Lanka next and aims to reach Elo 2450 as soon as possible besides eying an International Master (IM) title next year.
Nutakki finished her Asian Continental tourney campaign in second place with a fantastic last-round win over Padmini Rout. She had earlier beaten top seed Tania Sachdev, Soumya Swaminathan and higher-rated Nilufar Yakubbaeva of Uzbekistan for an overall rating performance of 2448.
