Next piece on the puzzle is what happened in Guanabara state, Rio de Janeiro proper. Here opposing forces were sometimes only meters from each other but there was no city-wide confrontation, only several local standoffs, some of which involved violence or the threat of it. All of it happened under the sights of the media and over 3 million civilians, on famous landmarks.

The pieces in the chessboard were:
-Governor Carlos Lacerda wielding the police and his supporters
-Castelo Branco wielding his inferior, general Mamede, who commanded ECEME (the Command and General Staff School) in the Urca peninsula (where the Sugarloaf lies), where several other military schools were also located
-Costa e Silva
-Rebels in the Navy
-Civilian supporters of the coup
-Goulart
-Admiral Aragão wielding his marines
-Major-Brigadier Francisco Teixeira wielding the 3rd Air Zone
-Âncora wielding the garrison
-General Moraes (under Âncora) wielding the coastal artillery
-Liutenant Colonel Arídio Brasil (under Moraes) wielding the Copacabana fort

Closing in on the city from afar:
-Mourão Filho