Anand beats Carlsen in round 3 London Chess Classic
In what was not a perfect game from both sides, Vishy Anand defeated Magnus Carlsen in a Breyer Lopez today. The other three games of the London Chess Classic's third round ended in a draw.General info
The second London Chess Classic takes place December 8-15 at the Olympiad Conference Centre on Hammersmith Road in Kensington, London. Besides the Classic itself there's a big open, a women's invitational, rapid and blitz events, simuls by Viktor Kortchnoi, lectures by GMs Boris Avrukh and Jacob Aagaard, and more. This wonderful fresh tradition in the capital of the United Kingdom anticipates a FIDE World Championship in 2012 and supports chess in schools and communities at the same time. In the top group Anand, Carlsen, Kramnik, Nakamura, Adams, Short, McShane and Howell play. More info here.
Round 3
Hans Arild Runde's live list hasn't been updated, yet but with just three points difference after round 2 it's clear that Anand has won back the number one spot by beating Carlsen in round 3 of the London Chess Classic. He did it in a Breyer Ruy Lopez that started not so well for the Indian, but somehow his young opponent didn't have his best day on Friday. Carlsen started to miss several things, then survived a winning kingside attack twice, and then lost anyway after the World Champion showed impressive patience and determination.Vladimir Kramnik was very close to beating the tournament leader Luke McShane with Black in a Berlin Wall - yes, Big Vlad went for that Big Opening again, after he had only played it once in 2009 and 2010 together. (Perhaps his shaky Petroff in Moscow has something to do with it?) The former World Champ showed once more his feel for complicated endings, and slowly but surely outplayed McShane... but then just didn't deliver the decisive blow. The Englishman could escape into a R vs RB ending which he then defended impeccably.The top English encounter between was quite an interesting draw. Short tried a "Greek speciality" in the Caro-Kann (5.Ng5 Nf6 6.Bd3 g6) which should be accompanied "with an ouzo", he added. Adams probably didn't find the most critical line and therefore Black was fine after the opening. The game became quite sharp at some point, but White was never far away from the draw.Nakamura-Howell was a bit of a strange game. After 26 moves Nakamura had spent 15 minutes, while Howell had 6 left. As it turned out, the American was still in his preparation there - quite impressive for someone who played 1.e4 and 2.Qh5 not so long ago! However, after he had to give his queen for rook and knight Howell didn't have trouble finding a fortress, and so Nakamura's time advantage was worth nothing.The press conferences of last two games mentioned can still be watched in the videos 3.3 and 3.4 below.Videos by Macauley Peterson
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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