Going into Norway Chess 2025, Lei Tingjie is in good type. The Chinese language Grandmaster lately clinched silver on the lately concluded World Blitz Championship 2024. It was a closely-fought affair within the last in opposition to Ju Wenjun, however the reigning four-time Girls’s World Champion got here out on prime, edging previous Tingjie of their second sudden-death sport.
Lei Tingjie bagged silver on the 2024 World Blitz Championship.(Twitter (FIDE/Stev Bonhage))
Chatting with Hindustan Occasions, the 27-year-old opened up on her expertise in New York throughout 2024’s year-ending World Speedy and Blitz Championships, and remarked that she was happy together with her marketing campaign. “I think New York is a fantastic place because this was my first time there. When I finished Rapid, I played very badly. I considered…okay, maybe it would be like a bad tournament for me. And then I thought that in Rapid, I played very badly. Maybe I can play very good in Blitz. Even though I finished in second place, I was very satisfied because maybe like in the quarter final stage, maybe I was lost, but then I reached the final. Yes, somehow maybe I realised I have some chances to win this tournament, but okay my opponent was the World Champion, also she’s very strong. So I think generally it was a fantastic tournament and also this experience for me, it was helpful.”
2024 additionally noticed Norway Chess introduce a girls’s event for the primary time and the line-up was led by the likes of Tingjie and Wenjun, with the latter ending because the eventual winner. “Okay, last year was the first time I played at Norway Chess. Also, this is the first time for the Norway Chess women’s section. And I think last year for the Armageddon stage, I played, how to say, very badly. I can say that. So this year I tried to improve my Armageddon skills. Also, I finished second place in New York. So hopefully this year I can do better”, Tingjie recalled.
Chess followers in India have been significantly focussed on the ladies’s part on the World Blitz Championship 2024, as Vaishali Rameshbabu completed on prime of the standings on Day 1. Tingjie got here second because the top-eight certified for the knockout stage. A title contender after her show, Vaishali beat Zhu Jiner within the quarter-finals, however noticed her run finish within the semi-finals as she fell to a defeat to Wenjun. On being requested if she ever had a private interplay with Vaishali, the World No. 4 remarked, “No, but sometimes we just say hi to each other and smile to each other. Generally, I think Vashali is also very shy and generally she focuses on playing chess. Maybe in Norway Chess or Grand Prix, we can talk much more.”
The 27-year-old is at present solely occupied with chess, and that has been her life basically. She acquired the Grandmaster title in 2017 on the tender age of 19. Solely six feminine gamers have efficiently damaged the GM barrier earlier than turning twenty, and they’re Hou Yifan, Koneru Humpy, Judit Polgar, Kateryna Lagno, Aleksandra Goryachkina and Tingjie; an illustrious listing certainly!
“Now I’m in Shanghai because now I live in Shanghai. Okay. And recently, I started to prepare for the Grand Prix because I think I will go to Cyprus to play the Grand Prix next month and also India in April. So yeah, generally chess,” she stated.
She was born in 1997 in Chongqing, and caught everybody’s consideration in 2014, when she gained the 4th China Girls Masters Event in Wuxi, on tiebreak in opposition to Wenjun. Then in 2015, she was victorious on the Girls’s Open Event of the Moscow Open, adopted by successful the Chinese language Girls’s Nationwide C’ship in 2017. After receiving the GM title on March 2017, she went on to get silver on the 2017 Girls’s World Speedy Chess C’ship.
She has represented China in a number of tournaments, and has put in dominant performances. A few of her highlights embody a gold medal on the 201 Asian Nations Cup and 2018 Batumi Olympiad.
The Chinese language GM additionally revealed how she began taking part in chess as a baby, and what attracted her to the game. “Okay then I started to play chess when I was five years old. I think because one day, I passed by a chess chess school and I just watched it from outside. I just thought it was so interesting because you can see the Knight and Bishop, I think it’s just like a game. And for me, it was interesting and I started to play and I told my parents, I really wanted to focus on playing chess. And I remember that time I also got into a dancing school. Then later on, I choose to play chess only. And my mom also took me to a lot of places to find a better coach and to play chess. I think when I was 12 years old and I started to become a professional chess player, I think my parents sacrificed a lot. I also sacrificed. I mean, compared to same-age people. I didn’t travel a lot and mostly I spent time on playing chess and also working with coaches. So I think everything is worth it because of this chess stuff, I really like it so I chose it and I will never regret choosing it,” she said.
Tingjie gained the Girls’s Grand Swiss title in 2021, and was additionally the 2022-23 Girls’s Candidates winner, which noticed her problem reigning Girls’s World Champion Wenjun for the title. However she misplaced the showdown, and it noticed Wenjun’s reign proceed. Girls’s chess can be extremely aggressive, and while you examine Tingjie’s World Blitz last and the controversial Magnus Carlsen vs Ian Nepomniachtchi title conflict, it most likely has a greater edge when it comes to entertaining followers.
Naming a few of her hardest opponents, she stated, “Okay, I think you can say that world champion Ju Wenjun and Tan Zhongyi are very strong. You can see Vashali (Rameshbabu) is very strong. Humpy (Koneru) is always strong, even though she’s been active in chess for a long time. But generally, I think she’s a very stable player. You can say Muzychuk Sisters are very strong. And also from Russia, I think Goryachkina (Aleksandra) and Lagno (Kateryna) are very strong. Also, you can see that Chinese chess players are very strong. I think Zhu Jiner and Lu Miaoyi, I think they are very strong. Maybe they can become like, how to say, the new generation of Chinese team.”
“I think actually you can see that women’s chess future is much brighter than before. Nowadays there are a lot of people who enjoy watching women’s chess because you can see that men’s chess is very high level and they are very stable but women’s chess is always very interesting. You can say like our games are sometimes like a roller coaster, it’s really fun to watch it and also there are more and more sponsors to support women’s chess. I think this is a good side for us also for chess because I think women’s chess is a little bit different, but still, I think women can play very well,” she concluded.
The Norway Chess Girls 2025 line-up has already been confirmed and can as soon as once more be led by Wenjun, Tingjie. In the meantime, the opposite members are Humpy, Anna Muzychuk, Vaishali and Sarasadat Khademalsharieh. The event is scheduled start on Could 26 in Stavanger, Norway.