The Chess Mind

This is the way tournaments are supposed to be, with lots of wins and a fight in every game. Only one game of the three was drawn, and that happened only when it was obvious that a draw would result. That game was Dominguez-Alekseev, a Berlin Defense where Black successfully minimized White's initiative while solving the traditional problem of Black's uncoordinated rooks.

Onischuk-Pelletier should have been a draw as well, but Pelletier's decision on move 26 to take on a potentially weak, isolated d-pawn, and the paradoxical, panicky-looking decision on move 29 to try to liquidate it, resulted in the loss of the pawn and then the game.

Finally, Carlsen-Bacrot was lively but a little strange. Bacrot outplayed Carlsen, despite the Black pieces and the quiet opening (an Exchange Queen's Gambit Declined), but Carlsen complicated the game and Bacrot lost the thread quickly, going from clearly better on move 25 to clearly worse two moves later and dead lost just two moves after that. (Time pressure?) The bottom line is that Carlsen is in clear first, even though he isn't getting anything from his openings, and I'm guessing (but don't know for sure) that if the tournament were to stop right now and get rated, he'd have passed Anand for the #1 position in the world rankings. There are seven rounds to go, however, and here are the pairings for round 4:

Round 4 Pairings: (On Thursday; Wednesday is a rest day)

Pelletier - Alekseev
Onischuk - Carlsen
Dominguez - Bacrot

Standings after Round 3:

1. Carlsen 2.5
2-3. Alekseev, Onischuk 2
4. Dominguez 1.5
5-6. Bacrot, Pelletier

Tournament site here; games, with my comments, here.