Kozhikode: Top seed and reigning Asian winner Koneru Humpy beat defending champion Aarthie Ramaswamy to remain the sole leader with 12.5 points after the 13th round in the national women’s A chess championship here on Monday.

Employing her favourite pirc defence, Humpy defeated Aarthie in 49 moves to record her 12th win in competition.

Trailing behind the leader with 11 points was former champion, WGM S. Vijayalakshmi, who successfully adopted the Morphy defence against Kruttika Nadig’s ruy lopez opening to win in 70 moves.

Latest entrant to the WGM club, Nisha Mohota settled for a draw against Swati Ghate to collect nine points and remain third on the table.

Third seed Dronavalli Harika drew with S. Meenakshi, who engaged slav defence to split points in 48 moves.

(PTI)