Candidates Rd3: Anand grabs early lead with 2.5/3

The FIDE Candidates Tournament is taking place in Khanty-Mansiysk (Russia). The first round will start on Thursday, March 13 at 3 p.m. local time, the final round is on Sunday, March 30, 2014. The event is a double round robin (14 rounds). The time control is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 and 15 minutes for the rest of the game plus an additional 30 seconds per move starting from move 61. The tournament will determine the challenger who will face the reigning World Champion Magnus Carlsen in a title match later this year. The prize fund is 600,000 Euros (= US $832,000), the first place 135,000 and last (8th) place 25,000 Euros.

Round three

Anoter fabulous day at the 2014 Candidates Tournament in Khanty-Mansiysk! Anand moves to 2.5/3, a spectacular score that was not expected by many experts. But that was not the only exciting game of the day:

Karjakin had no difficulty defending his Spanish position

Andreikin, Dmitry ½-½ Karjakin, Sergey
This Russian duel was not as interesting as the other one. Andreikin side-stepped the Berlin variation of the Spanish by playing an early 4.d3 but he was unable to obtain anything at all from the opening. Some pieces came off and the opposite colored bishop endgame with queens was an obvious draw that the players did not play out.

Svidler, Peter ½-½ Kramnik, Vladimir
What a game! It started with an old school Symmetrical English, nowadays not seen that often at the top level. White scores very well in this system but Black's position remains solid. Svidler obtained some pressure down the d-file specifically against the d-pawn, but Kramnik's position looked hard to break. The pressure really started piling on as Svidler put every single one of his pieces targeting the d6 pawn. White missed an excellent tactical shot with 27.Be3! followed by 28.Nc5! This would have netted him an exchange and maybe even the game. However his continuation still gave him a slight edge.

Kramnik's escape today was true magic

Svidler's d-pawn kept the initiative, but Kramnik came up with a surprising and masterful save:

Svidler was close to a win today, but he wasn't able to finish his compatriot off

Topalov, Veselin ½-½ Aronian, Levon

Aronian is also at 50% after losing his first game and winning his second

Topalov held the slightest of advantages against Aronian after he sacrificed a piece to obtain play against Black's king. Aronian was forced to sacrifice an exchange and a couple of pawns back, but it seems that had Topalov gone the greedy route and taken on a5 and b4 instead of h7 on move 28 he might have been giving the Armenian too much compensation and Black's position would have been easier to play. Things ended in a perpetual in what was a strange game.

Topalov is a favorite of many people because of his aggressive and exciting style,
but he is currently on three draws in this event

Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar 0-1 Anand, Viswanathan

Anand and Mamedyarov in the post-mortem. This is the Azeri's second loss in a row.

Anand is putting a strong statement with his 2.5/3.
Will he gain the rematch for later this year?

Games of the round:

Click on drop-down menu for all games

Daniel King shows the highlights of round 3

Standings after three rounds

Photos by Anatasiya Karlovich

Schedule and results

Note: the games are played at 3 PM local time, which is 10 a.m. CET (Paris) and 5 a.m. EST (New York). Click here if you are uncertain what that means for your local time.

Playchess commentary

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