Mixed fortunes for Orissa players

Press Trust of India

New Delhi, Jan 12: It was a day of contrasting fortunes for Orisss chess players in the 13th Parsvnath International Grandmasters chess tournament, here Monday. Grandmaster Debashis Das and WFM Kiran Manisha Mohanty scripted impressive victories, Utkal Ranjan Sahoo drew his game, but Rakesh Jena, Sidhant Mohapatra and Swayangsu Satyapragyan lost their respective matches.

Debashis defeated statemate Sidhanth while Kiran overcame S Adhithya. In the other matches Utkal held higher-ranked Gasanov Eldar to a draw, but Rakesh lost to Sanjiv Kapoor and Satyapragyan went down to GM Andrey Baryshpolets of the Ukraine. Debhasis currently is on 3.5 points while Kiran is on two points.

Meanwhile Grandmaster J Deepan Chakkravarthy played out an exciting draw with defending champion Abhijeet Gupta to stay in joint lead on 4.5 points after the fifth round of the event.

Chakkravarthy came close to winning against the top seed and it was only a few well-thought manouvres that saved the day for Gupta in what will be known as a fine escape by the latter.

Chakkravrthhy was joined by Baryshpolets, Mikhail Mozharov of Russia and Vikramaditya Kamble at the top of the table on 4.5 points each.