The third Indian in the fray V Saravanan drew his game but, put his chances of earning GM norm in jeopardy while Uzbekistan's teenaged star Rustam Kasimdhzanov extended his lead over the field to a full point.

Thipsay, who played an extremely quick draw against Saltaev in the earlier round, playing with black answered Barua's attack with the Scheveningen variation of the Sicilian defence and drew the game in 50 moves.

Thipsay equalised early on, but Barua attacked well in the middle game to get an edge.As usual Thipsay seemed to be in time trouble allowing Barua to get an upper hand.

Barua, however, missed a good winning sequence soon after the first time control. He could have sacrificed a bishop and rolled his pawn up forpromotion but missed it totally and Thipsay too did not seem to realise how close to defeat he was. The draw left Barua with 4.5 points and Thipsay has four.

IM Saravanan drew against S Khamdanov, who had beaten Thipsay in the first round, using the kings Indian defence. The Indian levelled early and then temporarily had an extra pawn, but when he realised he had to give that up and had no winning chances, Saravanan offered a draw but the Tajik player wanted to try for a win.

Saravanan (4) managed to hang on after queen trade-off and drew by repetition after 50 moves. Saravanan, now level on points with Thipsay, has drawn six of his seven games.

Kasimdhzanov, who leads the field now has six points from seven rounds, while his nearest rival, Dao Thien Hai of Vietnam, the top seed of the tournament has five points.

Kasimdhzanov defeated Karim Aliev of Turkmenistan in 52 moves, but Thien Hai, who had fallen behind came close to the leader with a win agaisnt Uzbek Sergey Zagrebeleny in the seventhround.

Four more rounds are left in the tournament, which ends on Wednesday.

Sasikiran wins

HAMPSTEAD: Indian International Master K Sasikiran kept his focus intact despite the final GM norm eluding him to beat Eddie Dering of Scotland in the 13th round of the third Hampstead International Chess here.

Sasikiran, with 8.5 points, was third behind leader Boris Kreiman (9.5) and second-placed Tiger Hillarp Persson (9.0) with two rounds left, and can finish among the top three.

Sasikiran played an unusual `b3' opening, but he used the space well and won in style after 52 moves in a rook ending with dearing down in material. The result left the Scot, looking for an im norm, with the tough task of having to win his next two games to achieve it.

Boris Kreiman led after his stunning six-move draw with Danny Kopec. Kreiman was in the reckoning for the GM norm and result came as a big surprise. He has to win both his remaining games for the norm.

In the race for GM norms, Persson who beat Sasikiranin the 12th round himself lost to Ron Burnett to squander chance of gaining a GM norm. In an interesting game both managed to queen pawns. Persson had a chance to draw, but went all-out for a win and ended up losing.

Persson has nine points and cannot reach 11.5 points needed to complete his norm.