Chennai: Woman Grandmasters Meenakshi Subburaman (IA), Nisha Mohota (PSPB), Mary Ann Gomes (AAI), and Candidate Master Bhakti Kulkarni scored their second consecutive wins and moved into shared lead with 2.0 points after the second round of the Velammal 38th women's National Premier Chess championship on Sunday.

Half a point behind the leaders at 1.5 points were International Masters Tania Sachdev (Del) and Eesha Karavade (Mahaashtra), WGM Swathi Ghate (LIC), Woman FIDE Master Saranya J. (Tamil Nadu), A.G. Nimmy (Kerala) and Pratyusha Bodda (Andhra Pradesh).

The interesting top board game between Swathi and Tania was a marathon affair and was the last to conclude. Swathi held the upper hand for most part of the Ruy Lopez game, but had to be satisfied with a draw in the end. Moving into the sixth hour of play, the rook and pawn end game lasted 74 moves, displayed the keen fighting spirit among the top women players.

In other boards, experience and ELO rating prevailed, as Mary Ann Gomes scored over Chandika Divyasree, Nisha Mohota defeated Aarthie Ramaswamy and Meenakshi Subburaman put it across Sai Meera.

Defending champion and WGM Soumya Swaminathan bounced right back after the first round loss to beat WGM Kiran Manisha Mohanty of Orissa.