Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, June 8: Orissa players had much improved show in the eighth round of the VIIIth Mumbai Mayor’s Cup Chess tournament as all of them except Utkal Ranjan Sahoo registered facile wins against their respective opponents in Mumbai, Monday.
IM Swayams Mishra prevailed over Abhilash Reddy of Andhra Pradesh and advanced to the joint third position. Swayams is sharing the third spot along with 17 others with six points in his kitty.
Orissa’s top bet GM Debashis Das got her rhythm back as he got the better of Aradhya Garg of Delhi. With this victory Debashis garnered 5.5 points to advance a rung up to share the joint fourth spot. FM Rakesh Kumar Jena (5) also scripted an easy victory over WFM Parnali S Dharia of Maharashtra. However, Utkal lost against higher rated GM Deepan Chakkravarthy of ICF after giving him a good scare with some skillful moves.
The competition is set to have a close finish as six players have theoretical chances of winning the championship at the end of the penultimate round. The contest between overnight leaders R R Laxman and K Priyadarshan, Krastiv and Mikheil Mchedlishvili ended in draws that helped them in maintaining their lead. They were joined by three more players – Alexander Zubov, Nguyen Duc and Luka Paichadze.