Kathmandu, May 29

Candidate Master Rijendra Rajbhandari of Nepal shared the lead with India’s Sarbojit Paul and Niladri Shekhar Bhattacharya after the fourth round of the Chakratirtha Chovar International Open FIDE Rating Chess Tournament here today.

Rajbhandari defeated Himamshu Harsha and Rishab Nishad, both from India, in the third and fourth rounds. Likewise, Paul beat Nepal’s FIDE Master Manish Hamal and Himal Lama of Golden Gate, while Bhattacharya earned a walkover win from Chandra Das Gurung in the third round before beating Shuvam Shukla of India in the fourth. The three players are tied on four points.

Nepal’s Sajin Maharjan and Santu Mandal of India are next with 3.5 points each. Maharjan played a draw with Deepak Katiyar of India in the third round and defeated former Nepal champion Punyaman Karmacharya in the next, while Mandal shared points with Kshitiz Bhandari of Nepal and beat Sumit Pant of Thapathali Chess Park in the day’s two rounds.

FM Manish Hamal, Himal Lama, Kshitiz Bhandari, Bikram Jati, Bikash Kuluju were in the pack of 15 players tied on three points along with India’s Rishabh Nishad, Shubham Shukla, Deepak

Katiyar, Rupankar Nath, Laltu Chattarjee, Ashutosh Kumar, Tamal Chakrabarti, Ashish

Raj and Vikash Kumar Dwivedi, and Shafiq Ahmed of Bangladesh.

The fifth and sixth round matches will be held on Monday. A total of 80 players from Nepal, India and Bangladesh are taking part in the five-day tournament for the players with below-2200 rating points.