The Chess Mind

Today's round was rather funny. Ivanchuk defeated Bu Xiangzhi easily, as a series of bad moves (which formed a single idea, so perhaps we can award a shared '??' to the series as a whole) left Bu with a totally lost game after White's 9th(!!) move. Objectively, the young Chinese star could have resigned at that point, but no one wants to lose such a ridiculously short game. So, after 46 minutes thought, he continued, but although he lasted to move 32 his position was never anything but completely lost.

That kept Ivanchuk perfect at 3/3. In clear second with 2/3 is Topalov, who showed good judgment against Cheparinov, his regular assistant. Topalov got a fair-to-lousy position against Ivanchuk's Classical French yesterday, which suggested that Team Topalov's prep in that variation was somewhat lacking. Accordingly, Topalov chose the Black side of that opening today, and Cheparinov too avoided the normal 8.Qd2. Yesterday Topalov played 8.a3 and got nothing; today, Cheparinov chose the even more unusual 8.Ne2 and also got nothing. On the other hand, he wasn't worse, and on move 26 he could and should have forced a draw with 26.Bc5. Failing to do so, he was objectively lost, and despite a move repetition a few moves later Topalov pretty confidently reeled in the full point.

The third game, Radjabov-Aronian, was drawn. Their game was the ever-popular Anti-Moscow Gambit, and although Radjabov achieved a threatening-looking position, it's not obvious that there was ever anything concrete. After a flurry of exchanges, the players reached a dead drawn ending after 37 moves, and 19 moves later they reached the deadest of all drawn endings: K vs. K.

Standings after Round 3:

1. Ivanchuk 3
2. Topalov 2
3. Cheparinov 1.5
4-5. Aronian, Radjabov 1
6. Bu Xiangzhi .5

Pairings for Round 4:

Radjabov - Topalov
Ivanchuk - Cheparinov
Bu Xiangzhi - Aronian

Tournament site here, video reports here, games with my comments here.