Sangli: Bengal women Swati Mohota and Supriya Maji took over the leadership position jointly after winning their fifth round matches in the 32nd women’s National B chess tournament on Saturday.

Swati defeated overnight joint leader Kiran Manisha Mohanty in 54 moves after a queen’s gambit declined opening in the Nutan Buddhibal Mandal organised event at the Walchand Engineering College.

Supriya downed Maharashtra’s Amruta Mokal, also in the lead bunch last evening, in only 34 moves to jump to the front of the field with Swati.

Following the leading duo closely behind and half a point adrift were Maharashtra’s Soumya Swaminathan, who got the better of Swati Das of Bengal, who was in the frontline Friday, and Tamil Nadu’s L. Aishwarya Shobhana and H. Soumya.

In the top board clash between Swati and Manisha the latter erred on the 21st move that cost her a rook against a rival piece. Manisha’s game went into terminal decline and she called it quits on the 54th move.

Pune’s Amruta also made an error on the 19th move against Supriya to give her opponent a clear advantage on the second board.

On the third board, Baisakhi Das of Bengal, pitted against Pune girl Soumya Swaminathan, opened the game with king’s pawn, which was replied with Sicilian Defence (Schavengine Variation) by Soumya.

Soumya had a clear edge in the middle game. Baisakhi sacrificed her knight against a pawn, but later Soumya’s extra piece earned her a win on the 52nd move. (PTI)