Sasikiran, who outwitted SK Rathore (1.5) in the third round, was closely followed by the overight joint leader, RB Ramesh with 2.5 points to his credit. One point behind the leader were IM Abhijit Kunte and GM Pravin Thipsay.

Thursday could well be described as the day of quick draws as four games were drawn within just two and half hours' play. The fifth draw between P Konguvel and NK Mishra was the longest game of the round.

Sasikiran outwitted Rathore from a King Pawn opening after 40 moves. GM Thipsay (2) played the Boleslavsky variation to Suvarjit Saha's (1.5) Sicilian defence. After exchange of knights, Thipsay won the second knight also, gathered his pieces and forced Saha to resign after 34 moves.

Anup Deshmukh (1.5) inflicted on newly-formed IM Saravanan (1.5) the first defeat. In factDeshmukh was winning in 17 moves but he overlooked it. Saravanan offered a draw then but it was not accepted. Deshmukh had some queenside initiative. Saravanan tried to counter attack from the King-side with a bishop sacrifice but Deshmukh himself gave up an exchange and with pawns on the c and d files, he sought to make a passer forcing Saravanan to resign.

TS Ravi played the Caro Kann defence against Shankar Roy. He lost two pawns in the middlegame but recover one pawn. However, he could not prevent Roy from making the h pawn a passer. With a knight sacrifice, Roy reached a winning position.

DV Prasad and Abhijit Kunte (both IOC) were the first to split points after 15 moves. Tejas Bakre (white) and Verghese Koshy agreed for a draw after 14 moves. RG Hegde (white) and RB Ramesh played an irregular opening, but as neither could make any headway in the rook and same-colour bishop ending, they agreed to draw after 30 moves.

Results (3rd round):

P Konguvel (1) drew NK Mishra (1), A Deshmukh (1.5)beat V Saravanan (1.5), D V Prasad (1) drew A Kunte (2), R G Hegde (1.5) drew R B Ramesh (2.5), G B Prakash (1.5) drew N Das (1.5), Shanker Roy (1) beat T S Ravi (1), P M Thipsay (2) beat S Saha (1.5), S K Rathore (1.5) lost to Sasikiran (3) T Bakre (1) drew V Koshy (1).

Pairing (4th round): Mishra-Koshy, Sasikiran-Bakre, Saha-Rathore, Ravi-Thipsay, Das-Roy, Ramesh-Prakash, Kunte-Hegde, Saravanan-Prasad, Konguvel-Deshmukh.