Bhubaneswar: Odisha women’s chess exponent Kiran Manisha Mohanty and Susobhit Das stunned their higher-rated opponents in their eighth round matches of the XIth KIIT International Chess Festival here, Wednesday.
However, title-contender, Debashis Das (6.5 points) who was among the joint leaders, slipped to tied second position after being held to a draw by West Bengal GM GM Diptayan Ghosh (6.5) of West Bengal.
Kiran and Susobhit are sharing the fourth spot with a number of other players Kiran Manisha overcame higher-rated GM Manik Mikulas of Slovakia while Susobhit defeated WIM Pratyusha Bodda (Andhra Pradesh).
Among other state players, Rajesh Nayak and Manish Kumar won their eighth round matches against Rahul Gurung (Sikkim) and Barath Kalyan (Tamil Nadu), but Utkal Ranjan Sahoo lost to RR Laxman (Railways). Sidhant Mohapatra meanwhile shared points with Divya Deshmukh (Maharashtra). Rajesh, Manish, Sidhant and Utkal are in joint fifth position with few others, having five points in their kitty each.
Saina Salonika (4.5) defeated Vrushali Umesh Deodhar (Maharashtra) while Baivab Mishra (4.5) got the better of V Toshali (AP) and Harshit Ranjan Sahu (4.5) beat Meenal Gupta (J&K) to be in tied sixth place.
It was a bad day in office for Sambit Panda (four) and Sekhar Chandra Sahu (four) who suffered defeats from their respective lower-rated opponents. Sambit lost to Kannan Sa (Tamil Nadu) and Sekhar went down to Soham Datar (Maharashtra).
Other results (Odisha players): Soundarya Kumar Pradhan (visually-impaired) (3.5) bt Ch Niharika (Andhra Pradesh); Aditya Ranjan Samal (3.5) bt Dikshant Das (2.5); Soyamsree Mohanty (3.5) drew with Sneh Dave (Gujarat); Smaraki Mohanty (3) lost to Kashyap Dhrupad (Assam); Saswat Mallick (3) bt Garv Gaur (Haryana); Subhendu Kumar Patra (2.5) drew with R Sanjay Srinivasan (Tamil Nadu); Prachurya Kumar Pradhan (visually-impaired) (2.5) lost to Hasan Sadnan (Bangladesh); Priyanka Routray (2.5) lost to Shyam Prasad Reddy (Andhra Pradesh).