Parimarjan Negi took little time to quell the challenge of International Master Falco Bindrich and jump into joint lead after the third round in the World Youth star chess tournament in Kirishi, Russia.

With his second victory on the trot in the 12-player round-robin tournament, Negi took his tally to 2.5 points out of a possible three and shares the lead with World junior champion Zaven Andriasian of Armenia.

Andriasian conceded his first draw in the event to compatriot Avetik Grigoryan. Interestingly, Grigoryan had also held Negi to a draw in the opening round and is now in contention for a Grandmaster norm in this event.

Grigoryan, GM Yuriy Kuzubov of Ukraine and GM Rauf Mamedov of Azerbaijan are just half a point adrift. With eight rounds still to come top seed GM Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia and his compatriot Edurad Gorovykh are not far behind on 1.5 points.

Negi's game was a one-sided affair as Bindrich did not have many idea in the Anti-Marshall opening with his white pieces.

The Indian gained the upper hand following passive play by white and quickly launched an offense through the centre to which Bindrich did not have any answer. The game was pretty short as Negi won in just 20 moves.

Andriasian and Grigoryan played out their draw in a French defense game where the former played white. Equalising quickly out of the opening after trading the queens, Grigoryan only had to find some right developing moves to discourage Andriasian from playing for a win. The game was drawn in just 18 moves.

Meanwhile, top seed GM Ian Nepomniachchti continued with his poor form and was without a victory for the third day running as he was again held to a draw by tail ender Ivan Popov.

Nepomniachtchi, who was a teammate of GM P Harikrishna for Ural team that bagged bronze recently in the just concluded Russian club championship, tried hard to win but found the defense of Popov hard to breach.

In other interesting games of the day, Diniil Lintchevsky found Kuzubov to be a tough customer and the latter won comfortably in a Sicilian defense game while Sergei Zhigalko of Belarus played it safe to hold Rauf Mamedov.

Results round 3: Falco Bindrich (Ger, 1) lost to Parimarjan Negi (Ind, 2.5); Zaven Andriasian (Arm, 2.5) drew with Avetik Grigoryan (Arm, 2); Sergei Zhigalko (Blr, 1.5) drew with Rauf Mamedov (Aze, 2); Ivan Popov (Rus, 0.5) drew with Ian Nepomniachtchi (Rus, 1.5); Daniil Lintchevsky (Rus, 0.5) lost to Yuriy Kuzubov (Ukr, 2); Eduard Gorovykh (Rus, 1.5) drew with Safarli Eltaz (Aze, 1).

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