All through the tournament in Batumi, the 19-year-old teen had surprised her opponents with aggressive as well as varied openings. She continued that when she had the black pieces. After Humpy played the Catalan, Deshmukh’s usual aggressive style of play (4…dxc4, 5…Bb4+) was on display. On commentary for FIDE, Viswanathan Anand remarked: “This opening does give you a chance to counterattack,” he said. “Divya will have to play passively for a few moves, which is not really her style.”

She did play a bit passively but she had loads of time out of the opening. Under time scramble the best of GMs can fumble and that’s what happened as Humpy, with under 60 seconds remaining, made a very committal 40. e4. Both players made misjudgments and the eval bar returned to dead level before the 38-year-old removed her opponent’s advanced f pawn (54.Rxf4).

In theory, both players now had equal pieces (a rook and three pawns) but Deshmukh had more counterplay possibilities (queening pawns, setting up a decoy with the advanced a pawn and a more central king). When Humpy resigned, she was in danger of being mated in under 20 moves.