German precision was at work on day three of the Quantbox Chennai Grandmasters chess tournament on Saturday as Vincent Keymer continued his winning run, outclassing India’s Karthikeyan Murali to lead the standings.

The 20-year-old Keymer with three points is followed closely by top seed Arjun Erigaisi, who vanquished American GM Ray Robson in a 46-move game.

World junior champion V. Pranav (Elo 2597) shared the point with seasoned Dutch GM Anish Giri (2748) in the only drawn game of the round.

Vidit Gujrathi trumped Nihal Sarin in an exciting all-Indian battle in 61 moves. Nihal, the younger of the two, slipped up after holding the advantage and allowed his opponent to post his maiden win here.

In the Keymer-Karthikeyan match, the German GM, playing with white pieces, gained ascendancy in a Sicilian Defence game by castling to the long side before launching an attack down the h-flank.

Keymer later said it was an intuitive move and added, “It just came to my mind. I thought that maybe it’s something I had seen, but it is a very dark memory, if there was any. The idea is that I generally would like to go Queen to g3 at some point.”

Keymer runs into Anish in the next round while Arjun gets to tackle Nihal.

Arjun wore down Robson after gaining an advantage on the clock and mounted pressure down the middle which left the American with no hope.

In the Challengers section, Abhimanyu Puranik and M. Pranesh are in the lead with wins over G.B. Harshavardhan and Pa. Iniyan respectively.

In another match, Leon Luke Mendonca overcame the challenge of R. Vaishali while D. Harika drew with B. Adhiban.

The results (third round): Masters: Vincent Keymer (Ger, 3) bt Karthikeyan Murali (1), Anish Giri (Ned, 1.5) drew with V. Pranav (1), Vidit Gujrathi (1.5) bt Nihal Sarin (0.5), Arjun Erigaisi (2.5) bt Ray Robson (USA, 1.5), Awonder Liang (USA, 1.5) bt Jorden van Foreest (Ned, 1).

Challengers: Abhimanyu Puranik (2.5) bt G. B. Harshavardhan (0.5), R. Vaishali (1) lost to Leon Luke Mendonca (2), D. Harika (0.5) drew with B. Adhiban (1.5), M. Pranesh (2.5) bt Pa. Iniyan (1.5), Aryan Chopra (1) drew with Dipatyan Ghosh (2).

Fourth round pairings:Masters: Karthikeyan vs. van Foreest, Robson vs. Liang, Nihal vs. Arjun, Pranav vs. Vidit, Keymer vs. Giri.

Challengers: Harshavardhan vs. Dipatyan, Iniyan vs. Aryan, Adhiban vs. Pranesh, Mendonca vs. Harika, Abhimanyu vs. Vaishali.