Vaishali Rameshbabu gave a measure of her talent late on Tuesday night by starting her Total Chess pilot event campaign by defeating Hans Niemann in a blitz game. Niemann was part of the seeding process for the tournament that will start in earnest from Wednesday.In the 24-player field that is assembled in Budapest, Vaishali is among the only two women, along with Bibisara Assaubayeva, in the fray.Before the start of the blitz section, Vaishali spoke to The Indian Express about her preparations for the upcoming Women’s World Chess Championship title fight with reigning champion Ju Wenjun, how her training has been going, how she views the Total Chess pilot tournament and more. Excerpts:It’s the first time that you are preparing for a World Championship after doing this twice for the Candidates. How is it different preparing for the big one?Vaishali: We’re just thinking about one player every day. The Candidates prep was a lot different; there you have to play seven players in a double round-robin. Here it’s just one player in the head-to-head. It’s also my first World Championship. I’m also learning a lot of things in the process. Vaishali Rameshbabu in action. (Niki Riga / FIDE)Garry Kasparov once spoke about how when he was playing Anatoly Karpov in his first World Championship, he was thinking so much about Karpov that he started to feel like he was becoming Karpov himself. Is that something that’s happening with you?Vaishali: Maybe (laughs). We will get to know soon enough. But I am also enjoying this process of preparing for it. Maybe once we get closer to the match, it’s going to be like that (the way Kasparov was feeling like he was turning Karpov). Right now I have lots of other tournaments I am playing so I am thinking about those things.Have you already started having training camps?Story continues below this adVaishali: I’m preparing to be the best version I can be in the match, so I am constantly working on improving my game.After the Candidates, you had revealed that you are also working with a psychologist. Is that still continuing?Vaishali: Yeah, of course. She has been helping me a lot in the last couple of years, but I will keep the name private for now.When you are playing tournaments these days like the Total Chess pilot tournament, as opposed to when you were playing in tournaments before the Candidates, do you always have that World Championship match at the back of your head or do you consciously forget about that for the next 10 days?Story continues below this adVaishali: For me, I see this event (Total Chess) also as a training for my World Championship match. I’m going to play a lot of strong players in this event. It’s going to be a challenge everyday. In any format it is going to be a challenge, so I just take this as preparation for the match.Also Read | 100 chess GMs for India but for most, real test of wits begins after the title R Vaishali in action against Zhu Jiner at Candidates. (FIDE/Michal Walusza)At the Total Chess pilot event, there are 22 male players and two female players including you. How much will that — playing against male players — help in terms of preparing you to face one of the strongest female chess players in history (Ju Wenjun) at the World Championship?Vaishali: Over the last few years, I was also playing in a lot of Grand Prix events, a lot of women’s events. So I could not play a lot of Open tournaments like I used to play when I was chasing grandmaster norms, for example. Now I have gotten used to playing all the top women players… I’ve played many games against most of them. Playing in Open tournaments does definitely push you to the limit. Even if you get a winning position in an Open tournament against a male player, you’re tested until the last move. You just know you are not going to get any points easily. They are going to keep the pressure on the board. It’s now the same in the women’s tournaments as well. But obviously the male players at this event are very strong. It will help me improve faster.You said your preparation is slightly different for the World Championship as compared to what you were doing for the Candidates. Do you mean more hours or more intensity in training?Story continues below this adVaishali: I think at the end of the day, I have to be in good shape during the tournament. Even if you do some 12-13 hours of training, if your brain is not working well, then there is no point in putting in a lot of hours.(The writer is in Budapest at the invitation of Total Chess)