Bhubaneswar: It was a day of contrasting fortunes for Odisha players in the third round of the Kolkata International Open Grandmaster chess tournament in Kolkata, Wednesday.
Sidhant Mohapatra, Rajesh Nayak, Sambit Panda and Baivab Mishra won their respective matches while Utkal Ranjan Sahoo, Rutumbara Bidhar and Mahitosh Dey suffered defeats.
Sidhant (2.5 points) is sharing the joint second position with 24 others after defeating Suresh Hari (Kerala). He has now registered two wins and a draw in the three rounds he has played so far.
Rajesh on two points defeated Kannan Sa (Tamil Nadu) while Sambit and Baivab (1.5 each) defeated Chandreyee Hazra (West Bengal) and Harshit Arya (Haryana), respectively.
However, Utkal (1.5) lost his game to D Gukesh (Andhra Pradesh) while Rutumbara (one) lost to Shantanu Bhambure (Maharashtra), her second loss in the meet. Mahitosh (one) suffered his first defeat after two stalemates after losing his third-round match to Saurabh Anand (Bihar).
Soundarya Kumar Pradhan (0.5) was the lowest-placed state player. He drew his third round match against Aashna Makhija (Maharashtra) after losing his first two games.
Russian Grandmaster Ivan Rozum was leading the chart with three points. He was followed by Indian Grandmaster Deep Sengupta and Erigaisi Arjun, who also have three points in their kitty, in second and third positions respectively. Besides the trio, five more players were in joint top position, having three points each in their kitty.
