Bhakti Kulkarni keeps winning, top-seed Soumya loses to

: Defending champion Bhakti Kulkarni of Air India continued her good run, outclassing teammate S Meenakshi in 37 moves in the ninth round to remain one and half points ahead of the field in the 46th National Women Chess Championship here Thursday.

Playing white side of modern defence, Women Grand Master Bhakti grounded fellow WGM Meenakshi to take her tally to eight and half points out of possible nine.

Meanwhile, Bhakti's nearest rival, Vantika Agrawal of Delhi suffered her first defeat in the championship, going down to National Under-17 champion K Priyanka of Tamil Nadu in 70 moves in a modern defence game.

With this victory, Priyanka has moved to joint second position, along with Vantika on seven points.

In a surprise result, V Varshini of Tamil Nadu shocked top-seed WGM Soumya Swaminathan of PSPB.

Playing with black in a Pirc Defence game, the No.1 seed made a blunder on the 31st move to hand the advantage to her rival and succumbed to defeat in 46 moves.

A pack of ..