Baburin maintains sole lead

International Master R B Ramesh8217;s GM-norm prospect ended as he went down to Pakistani IM Mahmood Lodhi in a Ruy-Lopez game. Ramesh obtained a small advantage out of the opening but blundered an exchange to this vital point.

WGM-norm aspirant WIM Bhagyashree Thipsay played out a short draw against Mas Hafizulhelmi of Malaysia. She now needs a draw tomorrow to obtain her second WGM norm.

The Baburin-Thipsay game was a King Indian defence Fianchetto variation where, the former was white. Thipsay played the queenside expansion plan but weakened his central squares in the process. Baburin methodically co-ordinated his pieces and won a pawn in the end game. The rest was amatter of routine technique.

Ganguly overlooked a simple tactical blow to lose his vital central pawn for no compensation in an irregular queen pawn game against GM Barua. Once on top Barua gave no chances to his young opponent and collected the full point in 33 moves.

Atanu Lahiri came in lone third place on 6 points thanks to a walk-over given by the top seed GM Anthony Miles of England who cited 8220;lack of sleep and illness8221; for his inability to play.

Sriram Jha got better of highly rated IM D V Prasad in a Sicilian dragon game to improve his chances of an IM-norm.

World U-12 girls champion Koneru Humpy displayed fine attacking skills to beat Pakistan8217;s Mohammed Waqar. Humpy now requires a half point for her IWM-norm.