Bhubaneswar: GM Debashis Das defeated his statemate Sidhant Mohapatra (5.5 points) in the eighth round of the KIIT International Chess Festival at the KIIT University here, Wednesday.
Debashis has 6.5 points in his kitty and sharing the joint second position with four others. He will play GM Farrukh Amonatov of Tajikistan in the ninth round of the meet. A win could help him get close to a podium finish. He had earlier signed peace with GM Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh in the seventh round.
It was however a bad day in office for Padmini Rout as she was beaten by another state player Sekhar Chandra Sahoo, who registered his third successive win.
Sekhar is sharing the joint fourth place with Ansuman Samal and 17 others including Sidhant, having 5.5 points each. Meanwhile Ansuman also registered his third successive win after beating Sambit Panda (four) and Utkal Ranjan Sahoo (4.5) in his seventh and eighth round matches respectively,
Padmini has 4.5 points and she is sharing the joint sixth position with 37 others, including Utkal and Saina Salonika, who drew with GB Harshavardhan.
Among other state players, Rajesh Nayak scripted his second successive win after three consecutive losses, when he defeated Fenil Shah and K Krithigga in the eighth and seventh round respectively. He is now lagging in the tied fifth place having five points in his kitty.
Indian player S Nitin and Vietnam’s Nguyen Duc Hoa are sharing the top spot with seven points each in their kitty.
PNN
