The Indians fared better in round three with eight wins, one draw and three losses. Aarthie, Humpy and Sangma's third straight wins were the icing on the cake.

In girl's under-18 Aarthie faced the fifth seed Nadezhda Kasintseva of Russia and played the Sicilian to obtain equality. Kasintseva, however, played well to nullify the advantage and Aarthie complicated the position by sacrificing a piece to catch her rival in time pressure.

In the final minutes of sudden death Kasintseva failed to play the right moves and fell into Aarthie's mating net.

Humpy once again played excellent game with white pieces against Zuzana Barosova of Slovakia. The champion developed her attack along the open F file by doubling her rooks and forced Zuzana to giveup an exchange. Thereafter Humpy displayed fine endgame technique.

In the boys under-10, Rahul Sangma lost a piece in the opening for two pawns but played energetically to improve the position of his pieces. Sangma won a pawn and an exchange to enter into a rook and pawn vs bishop and knight endgame and won after 86 moves. In the Under-16 girls, Y Pratibha faced the French Defence from Austrian Christine Ertl. Pratibha attacked relentlessly on the King side and sacrificed a piece to win the opponent's queen.

P Harikrishna played the English opening and crushed Lithuanian Robertos Sakinis brilliantly in just 20 moves. He is half a point behind the leaders.

MR Venkatesh played the Sicilian Pelican Sveshnikov variation and developed his pieces menacingly on Gilles Doubenfeld's (Luzembourg) queen-side. After obtaining a strong advantage, he converted it into a win.

Valay Parikh won in just nine moves against Serge Hovnanion of Lithuania in under-18 section.

Hovnanion fell into a basic opening trap andblundered his queen and lost.

Tania Sachdev played the Sicilian defence against Tomakataryna of Poland and the game transposed into a Dragon type of setup. Tania lost a pawn in the middle game, however, she fought well in the double rook endgame and won back the pawn to draw the game.

Another Indian in her category, Shraddha Samani, lost to Olga Iukina of Russia.

Eesha Karavade played the Dutch defence against Elitza Raeva of Bulgaria. Eesha played a good all-round game, bringing her queen on the King side for a decisive attack. Elitza resigned when she could not prevent Eesha's pawn from queening.