Bhakti Kulkarni jumps into sole lead with 6.5 pts

Former Asian champion and second seed Bhakti Kulkarni of Air India Tuesday jumped into sole lead with six and half points after the seventh round in the 46th National Women Chess Championship here.

Continuing her fine form in the championship, Bhakti outwitted top-seed Soumya Swaminathan in a key clash.

Playing with light colour pieces in a Grunfeld defence game, Bhakti got a pawn advantage on 23rd move and exerted pressure on open queenside of her top seed rival.

Under time pressure towards first time control of 40 moves, Soumya crumbled and blundered on 39th move to give minor piece advantage to Bhakti and resigned immediately.

On second board, overnight joint leader Vantika Agrawal of Delhi had advantage throughout the game with black pieces but failed to convert the same to decisive advantage against Pratyusha Bodda of Andhra Pradesh and split the points after long eighty seven moves arrived out of Kings Indian defence game.

With six points in the kitty, Vantika now occupies the lone second spot.

In other important results on the day, the match between Tamilnadu Women International Masters Michelle Catherina and P V Nandhidhaa ended in a draw, while Meenakshi Subbaraman of Air India defeated former champion Swati Ghate and moved to third spot in the point table with five and half points along with Michelle, Nandhidhaa and Pratyusha.

Earlier in the sixth round, Bhakti defeated third seed Divya Deshmukh while Vantika outsmarted six time national champion Vijayalakshmi of Air India.

In the eighth round tomorrow, Nadhidhaa takes on Bhakti while Vantika paired against Michelle and Meenakshi will fight it out against Prayusha.

Important Results:Round 7:Bhakti Kulkarni (6.) beat Soumya Swaminathan (5); Pratyusha Bodda (Andhra Pradesh) (5.5) drew with Vantika Agrawal (6); Michelle Catherina (5.5) drew with Nandhidhaa (5.5); S Meenakshi (5.5) beat Swati Ghate (LIC) (5);
Harshita Guddanti (Andhra Pradesh) (5) drew with Srija Seshadri (TN) (5), Mary Ann Gomes (PSPB) (5) beat Priyanka Nutakki (Andhra Pradesh) (4.5);
Round 6: Divya Deshmukh lost to Bhakti Kulkarni; Vantika Agrawal beat Vijayalakshmi S; Soumya Swaminathan beat Isha Sharma; Srija Seshadri drew with Meenakshi S; Nityata Jain lost to Pratyusha Bodda;