Padmini, Swati march ahead in Women's National Premier Chess

Defending champion IM Padmini Rout of Odisha and WGM Swati Ghate of LIC continued to lead with 6.5 points at the end of the eighth round of the 42nd Women's National Premier Chess Championship here today.
With three rounds remaining, the meet is poised for an exciting finish as both the leaders battle it out tomorrow which may resolve the neck and neck fight.
Not far behind these two, is young Pratyusha Bodda of Andhra Pradesh, on 5.5 points, while Soumya Swaminathan of PSCB, who was leading till the sixth round, suffered her second consecutive defeat -- this time against Padmini -- to be relegated to the third spot.

Playing white against the topseed, Soumya embarked on a dubious combination on the 21st move, which cost her a piece a few moves later.
Padmini had little difficulty in thwarting Soumya's attack and she herself gave back her extra piece to force her opponent's king out in the open and forcing checkmate.
Swati, playing white, had little difficulty in converting her material advantage of bishop and knight versus rook against Michelle Catherina of Tamil Nadu.

Swati created a passed pawn on the queenside, whose advance Michelle was unable to stop and ended checkmating herself.
Pratyusha inched closer to the top with a victory against K Priyanka of Tamil Nadu, with black, in a Sicilian defence.

Pratyusha won a pawn in the endgame and carefully nursed it to the queening square after which her opponent resigned.
Pratyusha, who has lost only one game -- to Swati Ghate -- has excellent chances of finishing near the top.
An out of form Tania Sachdev of Air India recorded her second win in the meet as she got the better of Neha Singh of Bihar in a King's Indian defence.
Tania won a pawn on the 34 th move in an already weakened kingside of Neha. Faced with a further loss of a piece, Neha resigned.
World U-14 girls champion R Vaishali of Tamil Nadu won the rook for bishop against WGM Bhakti Kulkarni of Goa in the middle game and had little difficulty in converting her material advantage into a win in the end.

V Varshini of Tamil Nadu won a couple of pawns against Priyanka Nutakki of Andhra Pradesh but Priyanka drew by perpetual check.