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Bhubaneswar, Jan 14: Barring Utkal Ranjan Sahoo, all other Orissa players put up an improved performance in the seventh round of the 13th Parsvnath Delhi International Open Grand Masters chess tournament in New Delhi, Wednesday.
In the seventh round, Grandmaster Debashis Das, IM Swayangsu Satyapragyan, Sidhant Mohapaatra and WGM Kiran Manisha Mohanty registered victories, while Rakesh Kumar Jena played out a hard-fought draw. Utkal was the only player to lose despite putting up a valiant fight.
Debashis checkmated IM BS Shivananda to take his tally to five points. Swayangsu also scripted an emphatic victory over Nishant Malhotra and joined Debashis on the same score. Sidhant (four points) defeated CM Aronyak Ghosh in a hard-fought match, while Kiran Manisha (three) overcame FM Tiwari Ashwani. However, Rakesh had to be satisfied with a draw as he was held by higher-rated Sumit Grover. Utkal was the only Oriya player to be outwitted by GM Neelotpal Das.
As many as four players are currently leading the pack with six points each. They are GM Andrey Baryshpolets, GM Mikhali Mozharov, Narayanan Srinath and Popov Ivan. Baryshpolets and Mozharov played out a draw while Naryanan prevailed over GM Cruz Cristhian, while Popov overcame GM Demchenko Anton.
