R3: Anand grabs sole lead

Two draws against Topalov were enough for Anand to grab sole lead in the combined standings of Amber 2008, since Aronian and Ivanchuk lost their mini matches 1?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? against Gelfand and Van Wely respectively.

Although Topalov tried it for a long time, it wasn't too difficult for Anand to draw the blindfold game. With White it wasn't so easy, because Topalov reached a better ending resulting from his new love, the Caro-Kann. But right when the Bulgarian could have really started pressing with 43...Bf6+ 44.Ka3 Rxe1, he decided to call it a day.

Newcomer Mamedyarov surprised everyone by beating Kramnik 1?Ǭ?-?Ǭ?, and it could have been 2-0 if he had found 18.Rxb7! Kxb7 19.Qa6+ Kb8 20. Ba3 in the blindfold game. In the rapid, he made the Budapest Gambit fans happy.

The minimatch between the two super talents Carlsen and Karjakin, who don't diverge too much both in strength and age, ended in 1-1. In the blindgold game, Carlsen slowly outplayed his opponent from the same line that was seen in Radjabov-Shirov and Anand-Topalov in Linares. Karjakin countered by being the first to adequatly react to Magnus' Alekhine Defence.

It was a disappointing day for the ambitious Morozevich, who went down 1?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? against Leko after he totally messed up a winning position in his rapid game.

The blindfold game Aronian-Gelfand was a truly fantastic draw, which definitely needs to be replayed below. After that, Gelfand simply played a very strong White game and thus won his first mini match.

Van Wely had a great day: he managed to increase his score to four times as much as he had yesterday ("A miracle!" Geurt Gijssen said) by beating Ivanchuk 1?Ǭ?-?Ǭ?. The blindfold game wasn't too exciting but in the rapid, except for the opening, Loek played a fine game.

Blindfold games:		Rapid games:

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