Four draws in third round Linares

Levon Aronian kept the lead in the third round of Linares, after all four games ended in a draw. They were all hard-fought games, in which Ivanchuk (versus Grischuk) probably had most chances to win the game, although Aronian (against Radjabov) also enjoyed a nice endgame advantage for a while.

From February 18 till March 8 the 26th Torneo Internacional de Ajedrez Ciudad de Linares takes place. There is no starting fee for the players this time but instead the prize fund is quite high: € 314,000. The first prize is € 100,000, the second € 75,000 and the third € 50,000.

Round 3 Again, World Champion Anand did not steer away from theoretical lines and made clear that he wanted to keep winning chances with Black, by going for the Najdorf. In fact it was a Najdorf the way Topalov likes to play it, and so we saw if on Saturday after all, but not in Sofia! However, Dominguez' preparation is on a high level and the Cuban only deviated from a known game at move 20, when the ending already looked very drawish.

It's always nice to see someone trying the most tested opening in World Championship matches: the Queen's Gambit Declined. This time it was Carlsen and he soon threw in some QG Accepted flavour in it too, following (yes again) a Topalov game. In the ending Black did have the bishop pair, but was also passive for a while so it was Wang Yue who kept the game going. After Black's little trick at move 30 it looks about equal.

The 4.Nf3 c5 Nimzo is still a regular guest at the highest level (Kramnik beat Anand in Bonn with this line, remember?) and a new test was seen in Ivanchuk-Grischuk. Again, it didn't go too well for Black, who lost a pawn while his passed c-pawn was easily blocked. Perhaps 29.e6 should have been replaced by something like 29.f4 or 29.Qb7 because from that moment Black had not much to fear.

Aronian and Radjabov got a rare Gr?ºnfeld line on the board - how rare becomes clear when you learn that it hasn't been played by players above 2535 and a natural move like castling at move ten hasn't been tried before! In the ending White seemed to have a clear plus, but it was not easy to make progress.

On Sunday the fourth round is played, and it's the last one before the first rest day.



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Links:

• Round 1 report
• Round 2 report
• Official website
• Games in PGN