The Week in Chess

Alexander Grischuk scored his third victory in a row in the Petrosian Memorial and sixth altogether after a 3/3 finish to the Baku Grand Prix, his last event. Grischuk leads alone on 3/3 a point clear of Vladimir Kramnik going into the rest day on Friday.

Grischuk beat Alexander Morozevich in a very sharp Chebanenko Slav which quickly went its own way with 5...g6 6.e4!? with the players having to work it out at the board it's hard to work out when Morozevich went wrong 22...e5 was forced and it seems white has a very threatening position afterward. 24...e5 is definitely wrong and with both players in time trouble Grischuk soon built up a decisive position.

Peter Leko introduced an important new idea in the Bf4 Queen's Gambit giving up two rooks for a queen with 19.Rac1 but Kramnik was not surprised until 24.Ne1. Maybe Leko wasn't quite the man to play the resulting positions but even so whilst the computers thought black had a big advantage it wasn't really clear what he could do.

The final two games were Bg2 Gruenfeld's. Boris Gelfand was well prepared against Ernesto Inarkiev and a balanced middle and endgame finished in a draw. The game Levon Aronian against Liren Ding was similarly quite balanced but Ding made life a bit harder for himself than he should have but nevertheless held the rook and pawn endgame.

Round 3 Standings: 1 Grischuk 3pts, 2 Kramnik 2pts, 3-5 Ding Liren, Leko, Aronian 1.5pts, 6-7 Morozevich, Gelfand 1pt, 8 Inarkiev 0.5pts

Round 4 Pairings Saturday 8th Nov 12pm (rest day Friday): Kramnik-Gelfand, Morozevich-Inarkiev, Liren Ding-Grischuk, Leko-Aronian.