Sudhakar Babu holds top seed Alexey Dreev in Parsvnath 3rd round

New Delhi, Jan 16 (UNI) Chennai-based Internatonal Master N Sudhakar Babu cornered the third day glory after splitting point with top seeded Russian Grandmaster Alexei Dreev in the Parsvnath International chess tournament here today.

The Indian IM with 2313 Elo points, forced Dreev to sign the peace pact in 45 moves and Dreev lost his joint lead position on the day of mixed fortunes at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium.

As many as 20 players were sharing the lead with three points apiece and a huge pack of 40 just half a points adrift was following them in the 10-round tournament being played in Swiss League format.

Sudhakar Babu employed an irregular Queen-Pawn opening and Dreev accepted the gambit. Babu got his pawn back after five moves in the game which developed into a Slav set up. After a complicated middle game Babu entered the black's area which lead to a few exchanges due to Dreev's weakness in the kingside and he offered the draw in 45 moves which the Indian accepted.

''My only plan was to play solid against Dreev without bothering about the result. It is a very satisfying result,'' said Babu, an Indian Bank employee.

In other matches, national champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly returned to winning ways by getting the better of VAV Rajesh's defence, GM Pravin Thipsay downed Swati Mohta, Neelotpal Das tamed talented Prince Bajaj and Abhijit Kunte outwitted IM RamnathaN Balasubramanium.

Seasoned GM Dibyendu Barua also had little difficulty in beating IM RR Laxman, while fellow Grandmaster Deepan Chakravarthy came off with flying colours in his match with MR Lalith Babu.

Former world under-10 champon Sahaj Grover continued his good run and tamed Divyashree in his third round match.

UNI