International Master Abhijeet Gupta scored a thumping victory over Woman Grandmaster Aarthie Ramaswamy and moved to 2.5 points after the conclusion of the third round of 8th Dubai International Open Chess championship at Dubai Chess and Cultural Club.

On a day when none of the leading Indians managed to defend their respective positions, double Grandmaster norm Parimarjan Negi scored over Lara Stock of Croatia to take his tally to two points out of a possible three in this USD 40000 prize money tournament being played under FIDE's Swiss rules.

With six rounds still to come in one of the strongest open event of Asia, as many as 10 Grandmasters emerged as joint leaders with a perfect score. Top-seeded Izoria Zviad showed no mercy over compatriot Zurab Sturua and coasted to his third victory in as many days to remain in joint lead.

Amongst the Indians at the top, only M R Lalith Babu could give stiff resistance against frequent Indian visitor GM Pavel Kotsur of Kazakhstan but in the end the immense experience of the latter helped him take the full point.

Grandmaster R B Ramesh and International Master S Satyapragyan tried to find some attack against GM Darmen Sadvakasov of Kazakhstan and GM Sergey Fedorchuk of Ukraine respectively but did not succeed in the end while S P Sethuraman blew his chances away against Armenian GM Tigran Petrosian.