Candidates – expert commentary on round three

From March 14 to April 1, 2013, FIDE and AGON – the World Chess Federation’s commercial partner – are staging the 2013 Candidates Tournament for the World Chess Championship 2013. It will be the strongest tournament of its kind in history. The venue is The IET, 2 Savoy Place, London. The Prize Fund to be shared by the players totals €510,000. The winner of the Candidates will become the Challenger to Viswanathan Anand who has reigned as World Champion since 2007. The main sponsor for the Candidates is State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic SOCAR, which has sponsored elite events chess in the past.

Round three report

Svidler-Radjabov

The Azeri GM Teimour Radjabov (above) went back to the King's Indian Defense in this game, and used a Benko style gambit with a6 and b5!? At some point he got his pawn back, but at the cost of a rook for two minor pieces.

Peter Svidler consolidated excellently and converted a full point. We bring you analysis by IM Zura Javakhadze, with additions by GM Alejandro Ramirez, who is an expert in the Benko Gambit.

At the press conference it was clear that Peter Svidler (above talking to Malcolm Pein) was happy with the opening he had got. “It is very nice to get a position like this, also with an hour and a big advantage on the clock. The game was mainly decided in the opening because I got such a huge advantage. The combination of the position and the clock pressure that was on Teimour here, that together made his situation quite difficult.”

Gelfand-Carlsen

This game saw the Cambridge Springs making a comeback to top level chess, but the opening results were nothing out of the ordinary. Boris Gelfand (above) got a slight edge that kept slipping away from him slowly.

Magnus Carlsen eventually got two strong passed pawns in the queenside, but his king was too weak to win and a Gelfand should have used this to force a draw. Instead he relied on his passed h-pawn and kept allowing Black to push his pawns until eventually they could not be stopped.

Ivanchuk-Aronian

A somewhat passive opening by his opponent simply gave Levon Aronian (above) the pair of bishops.

After trying to be overly creative from Vassily Ivanchuk's position kept getting worse and worse, until it became impossible to stop both of Black's bishops, as White's knights were slowly pushed back. We had express analysis of this game in yesterday's report, but here's a different take by our commentator IM Zura Javakhadze.

Pictures by Anastasiya Karlovich

Clearly this was the most fascinating game of the round. GM Daniel King dealt with it extensively in his video wrap-up in yesterday's report, and now we bring you more video commentary on the game:

Analysis of Gelfand-Carlsen by IM Andrew Martin

Looking back at round two: IM Andrew Martin

More than a hour on Round Three by Tryfon Gavriel, aka Kingscrusher

Standings after three rounds

Official broadcast of the round

Replay all games of the round

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

Schedule and results

The games start at 14:00h = 2 p.m. London time = 15:00h European time, 17:00h Moscow, 8 a.m. New York. You can find your regional starting time here. Note that Britain and Europe switch to Summer time on March 31, so that the last two rounds will start an hour earlier for places that do not swich or have already done so (e.g. USA). The commentary on Playchess begins one hour after the start of the games and is free for premium members.

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.