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 ..