Vijayalakshmi maintains lead

IM Subbaraman Vijayalakshmi of Air India maintained her lead at the end of ninth round with eight points at the 41st National Women Challengers Chess Championship here today.
Former National Champion and Arjuna Awardee, Vijayalakshmi (2314) outplayed WGM Padmini Raut (2354) of Orisa with New Grunfield Defence which was lasted for 66 moves.
Vijayalakshi got the yearly advantage in the middle game but had to try hard for the win due to Padmini's stiff resistance. But in the Rook ending it was difficult for Padmini to tackle the three extra pawns of Vijee which made her to resign after 66 moves.

IM Nisha Mohota (2248) of PSPB defeated WGM Kiran Manisha Mohanty of LIC in 42 moves. Nisha surprised her opponent by starting the game with Philidor defence with black pieces. As per Nisha it was a equal game with slight positional advantage but her opponent blundered a pawn in the middle game which made her task easy. She is now in second position with the score of 7.5 points
On board no 3, untitled Lakshmi Praneetha ( 2005) of Andra Pradesh played a attacking game today with black pieces in Scicilian Dragon Variation to force WGM Swati Ghate of LIC to resign after realising that it was difficult to save her king from the clutches of white after 28 moves.

She is now in third position with the score of 7 points alongwith Nimmy Geoge of Kerala and Lasya G. Of Tamil Nadu. Nimmy George defeated WFM Swati Mohota of West Bengal and Lasya G. Defeated WFM Bindhu Saritha of LIC.

WGM Padmini Raut of Orisa, WGM Bhakti Kulkarni of Goa, WGM Swati Ghate of LIC, WGM Aarthie Ramaswamy of Air India, WIM Ivana Furtado of Goa. Bala Kannamma and Varshini V of Tamil Nadu, Harshita Gudatantti and Hinduja Reddy of AP and Neha Singh of Bihar are on 6.5 points .
Goa's Bhakti Kulkarni defeated Pranali Dharia of Maharastra in 24 moves. While, WIM Ivana defeated Anjana Krishna of Kerala. WGM Aarthie Ramaswamy defeated WFM Arpita Mukherji of West Bengal.

WGM Soumya Swaminathan of PSPB, WGM Kiran Manisha Mohanty of LIC, Pratusha Bodda of AP, WFM Bindhu Saritha of LIC, Sunyasakta Satapathy of West Brengal, WFM M. Mahalakshmi of PSPB, WFM Riya Savant of Goa, WFM Swati Mohota of West Bengal, Dhanashree Pandit of Maharashtra and Smaraki Mohanty of Orisa are on six points.