Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, May 24: GM Debashis Das and FM Rakesh Kumar Jena of Orissa emerged joint leaders with 37 other players with one point each after their emphatic wins in the first round of the Elite category in the VIIIth KIIT International Chess Festival, which was inaugurated here Sunday.
Thirteenth seed Debashis prevailed over lower- ranked Rakesh Gaurang of Sikkim, while Rakesh prevailed over S Yogit of Tamil Nadu.
Barring Debashis, Rakesh and a couple of draws, all other Orissa players had a miserable day in the office. Utkal Ranjan Sahoo was forced to play out a draw with WFM Tarini Goyal of Chandigarh, while Rabindra Kumar Ojha was held by WFM V Varshini of Tamil Nadu.
Among others, Sidhant Mohapatra, Rakesh Kumar Nayak, Ashirwad Swain, Vaibhav Mishra, Swayams Mishra, Rajesh Nayak, Rajendra Kumar Sahoo, Biswajit Nayak and Kiran Manisha Mohanty lost their respective matches.
Sidhant lost to Aleksandrov Aleksej and Rakesh was beaten by P Karthikeyan. Ashirwad was outwitted by IM Dimakiling Oliver, while Vaibhav was checkmated by IMS Nitin. Swayams was defeated by WIM Pratyusha Bodda, while IM VAV Rakesh prevailed over Rakesh Nayak. In another match, Rajendra lost to IM PDS Girinath while Biswajit and Kiran Manisha were checkmated by M Reddy Chakravarthi and GM Abdulla Al- Rakib respectively.
In the platinum category, nine Oriya players are leading the pack along with 35 others with two points apiece after the completion of the second round. They are Sunyasakta Satpathy, Mahesh Prasad Sethi, Sovna Sonali Jena, Nilsu Patnaik, Satya Sundar Nayak, Hari Bandhu Singh, Dasarathi Sahoo, Anwesha Mishra and Ankush Sahoo. In a major upset, Ankush stunned higher-rated WCM Saina Salonika in the second round.
