Ever since Divya Deshmukh turned an in a single day sensation together with her triumph on the lately concluded Ladies’s World Cup, it was nearly sure that {the teenager} would appeal to many eyeballs and eager statement of her video games at any time when she took on the world’s greatest.
After taking a small break from her schedule, publish her historic success as the primary Indian to win the World Cup, Divya was again in motion this week for a web based occasion.
She was quickly introduced with a litmus check, one which demanded the hardest solutions within the shortest time. She competed within the 2025 Ladies’s Velocity Chess Championship, the place, because the identify suggests, she confronted among the finest within the enterprise within the quickest time management.
Divya was one among solely two Indians within the fray for the title of queen of pace chess, alongside R Vaishali. However when Vaishali misplaced her Spherical-of-16 conflict towards USA’s IM Alice Lee, the onus shifted solely to Divya.
Within the final 13 months, Divya Deshmukh has turn into a world junior champion, helped the Indian ladies’s staff win the Chess Olympiad gold medal and now lastly claimed a World Cup gold, whereas additionally turning into a grandmaster. (Photograph credit score: Anna Shtourman/FIDE)
Divya’s path to the highest 16 was removed from easy; she needed to face China’s Lei Tingjie within the Spherical of 16. Like every elite Chinese language participant, Lei posed a well-known menace, one which has usually overwhelmed Indian gamers in time scrambles. Having misplaced her World Cup semifinal to Koneru Humpy, Lei was decided to make amends towards Divya within the pace chess occasion. However the 19-year-old Indian, taking part in the most effective chess of her profession, dismantled Lei with ease, reserving a quarterfinal conflict towards World No.1 Hou Yifan.
Divya’s fierce strategy left Lei no room to get better, because the Chinese language suffered a crushing 10-3 defeat, exiting the occasion surprisingly early. This set the stage for a dream showdown: Divya vs Hou Yifan, an in-form Indian prodigy towards China’s biggest participant, battling in blitz and bullet chess. Whatever the consequence, one factor was sure that the duel would produce electrifying video games when the 2 lastly confronted off.
Beating Hou Yifan no cakewalk
Although Divya was driving an unprecedented profession excessive, and Hou, now a semi-retired skilled extra inclined towards academia, the Chinese language grandmaster nonetheless possessed sufficient energy to defeat any opponent, in any format, on any given day. Defeating Hou was by no means going to be a cakewalk for anybody and Divya’s try proved no exception.
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But {the teenager} got here out all weapons blazing, shocking Hou together with her sharp preparation. Defying expectations, she made early inroads, not solely salvaging a draw from a worse place within the first sport however quickly surging to a 2.5-0.5 lead within the 5+1 minute format. Hou had no solutions to the punches thrown by the Indian prodigy.
“Have a look at that, take a look at that… what a woman!” says Judit Polgar as Divya Deshmukh finds some good techniques to choose up the first win! https://t.co/x9TEgr9Nst#SpeedChess pic.twitter.com/IW6jkeTsLV
— chess24 (@chess24com) August 14, 2025
It was at this second that Judit Polgar, the best feminine chess participant of all time, weighed in. “How troublesome it’s for Hou Yifan, take a look at her physique expression. The best way she sits there now in comparison with the best way was sitting in sport one. She has to bounce again, she has to get again,” stated Polgar to IM Jovanka Houska whereas commentating for the official broadcasters.
“She wants to point out her resilience and say, “Come on, okay, I obtained a chilly bathe in sport one and two in several methods, however I’m going to be again in enterprise. I’m going to point out who’s the boss, who has the expertise,” and he or she (Hou) needs to offer Divya a lesson, I’m fairly certain,” she added.
Divya proved to be an equal match for Hou all through their encounter, holding her personal regardless of her lead slipping as soon as the match shifted to the three+1 time format. Undeterred, she counterpunched, regaining the benefit within the 1-minute bullet section.
Hou Yifan wins the closest match of the 2025 Ladies’s #SpeedChess Championship to date! pic.twitter.com/fFjYpMbeo0
— chess24 (@chess24com) August 14, 2025
“It’s an unimaginable kick from Divya, principally, it’s like she punched Hou Yifan, who was nonetheless feeling dizzy after that knock,” Polgar stated.
Finally, with nerves of metal, it was Hou who mounted yet one more comeback, levelling the rating at 9.5-9.5 earlier than clinching the ultimate tiebreak to advance.
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“There was numerous pleasure and nerves. It was clearly a detailed, head-to-head battle between the 2 gamers,” Polgar remarked after the match.
What’s Ladies’s Velocity Chess Championship?
The Ladies’s Velocity Chess Championship is a web based single-elimination match that includes 16 gamers, comprising eight qualifiers and eight direct invitations, competing for a complete prize pool of $75,000.
All matches observe a three-segment construction with totally different time controls. Within the spherical of 16 and quarterfinals, gamers first compete in 5+1 video games (5 minutes with a 1-second increment per transfer) for 45 minutes, adopted by 3+1 video games (3 minutes + 1-second increment) for half-hour, and conclude with 1+1 video games (1 minute + 1-second increment) for quarter-hour. The semifinals and finals increase these segments to 75 minutes of 5+1 video games, 50 minutes of three+1 video games, and 25 minutes of 1+1 video games. The scoring system awards 1 level for a win and 0.5 factors to every participant for a draw, with the match winner being the competitor who accumulates essentially the most factors throughout all segments.