Bhubaneswar: Sanjeeban Nayak of Odisha performed well to finish a creditable seventh in category B in the XIth KIIT International Chess Festival, which concluded here, Monday.
Sanjeeban was tied with five other players in joint third spot with eight points after the end of the 10th and the final round. But he had to be satisfied with a seventh-place finish on the basis of his tie-breaker score.
P Vijay Shreeram of Tamil Nadu emerged champion with nine points while Prashant Katiyar (8.5) of Uttar Pradesh was second and compatriot Ajay Mushini third.
Apart from Sanjeeban, the other Odisha players failed to shine. Sudhir Kumar Behera and Binayak Rath finished with distant 16 th and 22nd places respectively.
In the final round, Sanjeeban scripted a convincing victory over statemate Tapan Badamundi, Binayak registered a hard-fought victory over Nitin M Pai of Kerala while Sudhir played out a draw with Soham Dey of Kerala.
4th win for Debashis
GM Debashis Das of Odisha maintained his joint top position along with eight others with 4.5 points each in the category A after the completion of the fifth round. Debashis continued his dream run Monday outwitted Sammed Jaykumar Shette of Maharashtra to register his fourth win of the event.
Other results: Ansuman Samal bt R Sanjay Srinivasan, Manish Kumar drew with Subhayan Kundu, Sidhant Mohapatra drew with Arpita Mukherjee, Saina Salonika drew with Khusenkhojaev Muhammad, Rajesh Nayak lost to Shiva Paban Teja, Padmini Rout lost to N Hari Madhavan.
