Bhubaneswar: Odisha youngster Rutumbara Bidhar stunned a higher-ranked Arpita Mukharjee in the second round of the Kolkata International Open Grandmasters chess tournament, Tuesday.
After losing her campaign-opener to Ojas Kulkarni of Karnataka, the Odia player who has an Elo rating of 1,923 points, came back strong to hand Arpita, who has a 2,115-point rating, a shocking defeat. Rutumbara has now one point in the nine-round meet.
Most of the other Odia players, namely – Sidhant Mohapatra, Utkal Ranjan Sahoo, Rajesh Nayak, Mahitosh Dey and Baivab Mishra played out draws in their respective matches while Sambit Panda suffered a defeat to GM Farrukh Amonatov (Tajikistan).
Sidhant (1.5 points) drew with Vinayak Kulkarni (Karnataka) while Utkal (1.5 points) played out stalemate with GM Ziaur Rahman (Bangladesh) and Rajesh (one) shared points with Nitin Shankar Madhu (Tamil Nadu).
Among others, Mahitosh (one) drew with VAV Rajesh (Tamil Nadu) while Baivab Mishra (0.5) shared points with Arya Bhakta (West Bengal).
Russian Grandmaster Ivan Rozum was leading the chart with two points. Indian GM Deep Sengupta and GM Tran Tuan Minh of Vietnam were second and third in the list, also with two points each.