Three decisive games in third round Nanjing

In the third round of the Pearl Spring tournament in Nanjing, Magnus Carlsen scored his second victory, outpreparing Wang Yue in a Petroff. Viswanathan Anand won with Black against Veselin Topalov in a Lasker Defence - just like their last game of this year's World Championship. Also with the black pieces Etienne Bacrot profited from a big mistake by Vugar Gashimov. Big pictorial report & games with comments by the players.

General info

The third Kanion Cup Nanjing Pearl Spring Chess Tournament takes place October 21-30 in Nanjing, China. Viswanathan Anand, Magnus Carlsen, Veselin Topalov, Wang Yue, Vugar Gashimov and Etienne Bacrot play a double round-robin with one rest day halfway. More info here.

Videos

Round 3 report

After his smooth win against Wang Yue, Magnus Carlsen quickly left the third floor of the Pearl Spring hotel, but later he returned to join Viswanathan Anand at the daily press conference, just like the day before - but this time both of them had won. They also shared a quote: both players said about their opponents "I'm not sure exactly what he missed."



Carlsen was happy to share his thoughts about a game that can easily make a headline like 'Beating the Petroff'. Especially since these days it's a rare thing that a White player gets a clear advantage against this opening and then bags the point soon afterwards.

"I also could have kicked out his rook and still be a bit better but it turned out that after I went for the pawn he didn't have any counterplay," said Carlsen. Like his many fans, the Norwegian thought he had won "surprisingly easy".

Naturally we asked him about his preparation. "I looked at it today. I was prepared as far as 19.Qg3 basically, when I thought he would have nothing better than 19...Qe5. I thought since I'm better either way, whether I take the pawn on c7 or not, it doesn't make any sense to analyze it even further." Since up till that point it was played before, Carlsen admitted that it "wasn't such a big achievement" that he had prepared it that far.

Then it was Vishy Anand's turn. The World Champion had delivered a psychological blow to his opponent Veselin Topalov - who was also his challenger in the World Championship in May this year - by beating the Bulgarian in the same QGD Lasker Defence as their last game in Sofia. Several of our readers have already pointed out that also in that game the white king ended up on h4.



"It started to get very interesting quickly," Anand started. He explained that after 15.Qa3 Black "of course has to react tactically" because he can't just allow a white piece on c5. "[With his next few moves] it seems I'm holding".

And that was not all. After the three draws yesterday, there were three decisive games today, as Etienne Bacrot also got the full point, thus climbing to clear third place. "It's the second day in a row that I get a present from my opponent," said Bacrot while smoking a deserved cigarette right after his win against Vugar Gashimov. The Frenchman obviously referred to 14.Nb6+, after which Black is just much better. "I think he just miscalculated something. After some normal move like 14.Nc5 or 14.Bc3 it's an unclear position."



Later that night in the restaurant we heard Anand saying something to Bacrot about the game. This might have been about move 36, where both players seemed to have missed that White could draw for just one move... [Update: this wasn't the case. Black was also winning there.]

Games round 3

Game viewer by ChessTempo


Pearl Spring (Nanjing) 2010 | Schedule & results


Pearl Spring (Nanjing) 2010 | Round 3 standings

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC