Schacksnack

Results from round 3:

GM Bacrot, Etienne, France (2711) – GM Anand, Viswanathan, India (2797) draw

GM Aronian, Levon, Armenia (2777) – GM Caruana, Fabiano, Italy (2811) 0-1

GM Adams, Michael, England (2738) – GM Baramidze, David, Germany (2594) draw

GM Najditsch, Arkadij, Germany (2706) – GM Carlsen, Magnus, Norway (2865) 1-0

These results mean that with Najditsch’s win against Carlsen and Caruana’s win against Aronian there are two players in the lead with 2/3. Carlsen played the shocking sacrifice 10…Bxg4? which gave White a clear advantage very early in the game. There were some ups and downs but White was never worse and went on to win an extremeley complicated game. The game is annotated in detail by the Swedish GM Tiger Hillarp Persson on his homepage. Hillarp Persson is a renowned expert on this system having written the book The Modern Tiger in two editions for Quality Chess.

Aronian made a suspect pawn sacrifice and eventually lost the game to Caruana. Adams won pretty easily in a relatively regular Spanish game versus Baramidze. Anand defended with the Berlin Defence versus Bacrot and the game ended peacefully in a draw.

Another recap from round 3

Round 4 on Saturday has the following meetings:

GM Anand, Viswanathan, India (2797) – GM Carlsen, Magnus, Norway (2865)

GM Baramidze, David, Germany (2594) – GM Najditsch, Arkadij, Germany (2706)

GM Caruana, Fabiano, Italy (2811) – GM Adams, Michael, England (2738)

GM Bacrot, Etienne, France (2711) – GM Aronian, Levon, Armenia (2777)

The game between Anand-Carlsen will of course be the centre of attention.

The games start 15.00 (CET) every day except 5th february which is a rest day. The games can be followed live at chess24.com with excellent and professional comments by GM Nigel Short and GM Jan Gustafsson.

There is more information on the organizer’s homepage.