The Indian top-three of R Praggnanandhaa, Arjun Erigaisi and D Gukesh won their respective third-round games in Grand Swiss 2025 at Samarkand in Uzbekistan on Saturday.

Gukesh had blundered in the previous round against Turkish prodigy Erdogmus to settle for a draw. But the World Champion did no such mistake against Spaniard Daniil Yuffa. 

Pragg won with black pieces against veteran GM Boris Gelfand, while Erigaisi got the better of Anton Demchenko to join Gukesh on 2.5 points. Iranian GM Parham Maghsoodloo continued his perfect start with a third straight win, the latest against favourite Alireza Firouzja, to top the points table on 3 points.

Nihal Sarin and S L Narayanan, the two Malayali GMs in the event, drew their games against Yuriy Kuzubov and Nikolas Theodorou respectively. 

Meanwhile, World Cup-winner Divya Deshmukh drew her second game against a stronger GM. Divya showcased her end game skills against Murali Karthikeyan in a lengthy battle that lasted 101 moves.

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