Kings R3: Radjabov beats Ponomariov
Teimour Radjabov defeated Ruslan Ponomariov in the third round of the Kings Tournament in Medias, Romania. Gelfand and Nisipeanu kept their slim lead; the Israeli drew with Carlsen while the Romanian split the point with Wang Yue. Games annotated by GM Dorian Rogozenco & videos.The fourth Kings Tournament takes place in Medias, Romania from June 14 till 25. Against it's a 6-player, double round-robin, with two rest days. This year Carlsen, Gelfand, Nisipeanu, Ponomariov, Radjabov and Wang Yue play. The rate of play is 2 hours for the first 40 moves, one hour for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes plus an increment of 30 seconds per move.The rounds start each day at 15.30 which is 14.30 CET and 08.30 EDT. They can run well into the evening, as we won't see ultra-short draws in this tournament - no draw agreement by the players are allowed before move 30, except for cases of a triple-repetition, a perpetual or a theoretically drawn position.The event is organized by Romgaz and the Chess Club Society "Elisabeta Polihroniade”. This year the tournament is officially part of the Grand Slam, substituting the cancelled MTel Masters. Venue is the brand new Romgaz Center in Medias (near Bazna), but the organizers are considering to move back to Hotel Complex Balnear Expro in Bazna, where everyone is staying. ChessVibes will be at the tournament from start to finish, providing videos for the official website:Videos
Round 3
"I don't agree," Nisipeanu answered to the question whether there should be tournaments where the Petroff is not allowed. "It's just an opening where White needs to work more." Wang Yue improved upon a recent game between his compatriots Li Chao and Bu Xiangzhi, which ended in romantic style, as can be seen in today's video. Nisipeanu couldn't find anything tangible against the improvement and so the game ended quickly.
Carlsen tried an interesting plan with f4 and Rf1-f3, but soon found out that it was't very dangerous, due to some accurate moves by Gelfand over the c-file. In fact it was Black who had the advantage in the second phase of the game, but the Israeli regretted playing ...e5 too quickly. "If I prepare it with Kg7 first it's much stronger."Gelfand's reaction to Spain's 1-0 loss against Switzerland at the World Cup: "It's always better to lose the first game than the last." He said he was rooting for Spain, and Holland. "I always root for Holland." Carlsen also said he liked the Spanish team, despite the fact that, being a Real fan, he sees Barcelona delivering most players. "No, I don't mind." 
Ponomariov reached a promising postion out of the opening against Radjabov, but then played too slowly. He agreed with his opponent that he should have tried b4-b5 at some point. In fact Radjabov could have won earlier, as he explains in the video, but "There I trusted my opponent too much."
More comments by the players in the round 3 video, now up.
Round 3 games annotated by GM Dorian Rogozenco
Game viewer by ChessTempoPhotos © Tournament website
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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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