Chess Super League R3: 3-Way Tie For 1st Place
The round-robin phase of the Chess Super League is still wide open after three rounds of play. The Brutal Bishops, Ruthless Rooks, and Kingslayers are currently in a tie for first place with four match points.
The games of the Chess Super League can be found here as part of our live events platform.
Ruthless Rooks vs. Quintessential Queens: 3.5-2.5
| Bo. | Fed | 2 | Ruthless Rooks | Rtg | 3½ - 2½ | Fed | 6 | Quintessential Queens | Rtg |
| 1.1 | GM | Karthikeyan, Murali | 2630 | 1 - 0 | GM | Koneru, Humpy | 2586 | ||
| 1.2 | GM | Radjabov, Teimour | 2763 | ½ - ½ | GM | Karjakin, Sergey | 2743 | ||
| 1.3 | GM | Muzychuk, Anna | 2533 | 1 - 0 | IM | Tania, Sachdev | 2392 | ||
| 1.4 | GM | Harika, Dronavalli | 2511 | 1 - 0 | GM | Hou, Yifan | 2658 | ||
| 1.5 | IM | Raja, Harshit | 2494 | 0 - 1 | GM | Iniyan, P | 2529 | ||
| 1.6 | WFM | Salonika, Saina | 2206 | 0 - 1 | WIM | Priyanka, K | 2218 |
Because a team doesn't know in advance if their opponent has made the possible swap of boards (one and two, or three and four, or both), it can happen that both swap and nullify their opponent's decision. This happened in this match, where top guns (and good friends) GM Sergey Karjakin and GM Teimour Radjabov drew their game on... board two.
An interesting game is GM Harika Dronavalli's win vs. GM Hou Yifan, where the Indian grandmaster used 4...f5!?, demonstrating that it works well after White's c2-c3 when the knight cannot go to c3.
Kingslayers vs. Krazy Knights: 4-2
| Bo. | Fed | 3 | Kingslayers | Rtg | 4 - 2 | Fed | 1 | Krazy Knights | Rtg |
| 2.1 | GM | Giri, Anish | 2774 | ½ - ½ | GM | Nakamura, Hikaru | 2736 | ||
| 2.2 | GM | Sethuraman, S.P. | 2620 | 1 - 0 | GM | Sasikiran, Krishnan | 2640 | ||
| 2.3 | IM | Soumya, Swaminathan | 2351 | 0 - 1 | GM | Muzychuk, Mariya | 2536 | ||
| 2.4 | GM | Dzagnidze, Nana | 2524 | 1 - 0 | WGM | Gomes, Mary Ann | 2354 | ||
| 2.5 | GM | Gukesh, D | 2640 | ½ - ½ | GM | Aryan, Chopra | 2585 | ||
| 2.6 | WIM | Arpita, Mukherjee | 2229 | 1 - 0 | WIM | Mrudul, Dehankar | 2256 |
After a loss in the first round to the Brutal Bishops, the Kingslayers find themselves at the top of the standings after two straight wins. Thanks to good wins on the other boards, it didn't matter that GM Anish Giri spoiled a winning endgame vs. GM Hikaru Nakamura, who must have mixed up his lines in the Berlin endgame:
Brutal Bishops vs. Pivotal Pawns 3-3
| Bo. | Fed | 4 | Brutal Bishops | Rtg | 3 - 3 | Fed | 5 | Pivotal Pawns | Rtg |
| 3.1 | GM | Wang, Hao | 2744 | ½ - ½ | GM | Gupta, Abhijeet | 2628 | ||
| 3.2 | GM | Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi | 2726 | 1 - 0 | GM | Ding, Liren | 2799 | ||
| 3.3 | GM | Kosteniuk, Alexandra | 2518 | 1 - 0 | GM | Abdumalik, Zhansaya | 2507 | ||
| 3.4 | IM | Karavade, Eesha | 2345 | 0 - 1 | IM | Kulkarni, Bhakti | 2388 | ||
| 3.5 | GM | Sadhwani, Raunak | 2555 | ½ - ½ | GM | Arjun, Kalyan | 2537 | ||
| 3.6 | WFM | Tarini, Goyal | 2164 | 0 - 1 | WIM | Savitha, Shri B | 2281 |
The Brutal Bishops allowed two teams to join them in the lead after playing another 3-3 tie (but keeping their status as the only unbeaten team). The result that stands out here is GM Vidit Gujrathi's win vs. GM Ding Liren:
Round 3 Standings
| Rk. | Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | MP | BP |
| 1 | Ruthless Rooks | 2½ | 4 | 3½ | 4 | 12,0 | |||
| 2 | Brutal Bishops | 4½ | 3 | 3 | 4 | 11,5 | |||
| 3 | Kingslayers | 1½ | 3½ | 4 | 4 | 11,0 | |||
| 4 | Pivotal Pawns | 3½ | 3 | 2½ | 3 | 10,0 | |||
| 5 | Krazy Knights | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 9,0 | |||
| 6 | Quintessential Queens | 2½ | 3 | 2 | 1 | 7,5 |
All games day 3
The Chess Super League will continue with rounds four and five on Thursday and Friday, followed by playoffs and finals on Saturday and Sunday. The games are played with a time control of 15 minutes plus a 10-second increment. The total prize fund of the event is Rs.40 lakh (U.S. $54,000).
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