Thirteen year-old local lad C Praveen Kumar (2) gave an interesting pawn sacrifice against top seed GB Prakash's (3) Dutch defence. Prakash, representing Indian Bank (Chennai), defended doggedly to emerge a pawn ahead in the endgame. Praveen conceded the game after 36th move.

International Master RB Ramesh (3) of Indian Oil Corporation scored an attacking victory over Vijayakumar (2) in the French defence. Ramesh sacrificed a piece on 19th move and soon wraped up the game with a nice onslaught on black king. International Masters V Koshy (3) of ONGC and MB Muralidhran (3) of Kerala easily outplayed Amer (2) and Alaguraj (2) respectively.

Former Asian women champion Anupama Gokhale (3) of Bharat Petroleum won a pawn in the opening against M Raju (2). Raju fought well out butfinally gave up after a marathon endgame as Anupama's pawns were queening forcely.

Important 3rd round results: C Praveen Kumar (2) lost to GB Prakash (3) RB Ramesh (3) bt Vijayakumar (2), Amer (2) lost to V Koshy (3) MB Muralidharan (3) bt Alaguraj (2), Arvind Shastry (3) bt P Sharma (2) AVK Venkat (2) lost to K Haridas (2), Srinivasa Raghavan (3) bt G Sekaran (2), Chandrasekhar (3) bt Murugacheran (2, M Raju (2) lost to Anupama Gokhale (3), D Prabhakaran (2) lost to Arokiaraj (3).