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On Friday, the players are having a rest-day, but before that they showed fighting chess: four of the five classical games in round three had a winner and all four wins were interesting.
Carlsen opened with 1.d4 which Grischuk countered with a Grünfeld. However, he soon was in trouble and in the middlegame Carlsen used his strong pawn centre to launch an attack against Black's king. Grischuk found no defense and lost quickly.
Master Class Vol.8: Magnus Carlsen
Scarcely any world champion has managed to captivate chess lovers to the extent Carlsen has. The enormously talented Norwegian hasn't been systematically trained within the structures of a major chess-playing nation such as Russia, the Ukraine or China.
Magnus Carlsen analyzing with Judit Polgar (centre) and Anna Rudolf | Photo: Lennart Ootes
Ding Liren played energetically, showed a number of original ideas and converted with good technique.
Levon Aronian easily equalized in the opening and outplayed Shakhriyar Mamedyarov after a tactical sequence which gave Black a queen for two rooks. In principle, two rooks are enough material for the queen but White failed to co-ordinate his pieces and lost.
And Action! - How to crown positional play by tactics
There are few names which, like that of Alexei Shirov, can be associated with fantastically imaginative and tactically influenced play. Now the Latvian grandmaster is presenting a DVD on precisely that element of the game of chess. And one that is completely based on his own games.
Levon Aronian | Photo: Lennart Ootes
A Petroff Defence with 5.♘c3 gave White a slightly more pleasant position after the opening but after a couple of inaccuracies by Black White got a better endgame which So won after 66 moves.
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave struggled to get an advantage with the white pieces, both in the Classical and in the Armageddon game. In both games Anand equalized comfortably and two easy draws brought him 1½ points.
Click or tap on the list to watch the second game
The first DVD with videos from Anand's chess career reflects the very beginning of that career and goes as far as 1999. It starts with his memories of how he first learned chess and shows his first great games (including those from the 1984 WCh for juniors). The high point of his early developmental phase was the winning of the 1987 WCh for juniors. After that, things continue in quick succession: the first victories over Kasparov, WCh candidate in both the FIDE and PCA cycles and the high point of the WCh match against Kasparov in 1995.
Running time: 3:48 hours
Focused and professional: Vishy Anand | Photo: Lennart Ootes
GM Danny King recaps the action from round three
| Rk | Player | Classical | Armageddon | Pts | |||
| W | D | L | W | L | |||
| 1 | M. Carlsen | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 5 |
| 2 | Ding Liren | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| 3 | L. Aronian | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| 4 | W. So | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| 5 | S. Mamedyarov | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3½ |
| 6 | Yu Yangyi | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
| 7 | F. Caruana | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2½ |
| 8 | V. Anand | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 9 | A. Grischuk | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| 10 | M. Vachier-Lagrave | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
