The Week in Chess

Veselin Topalov seemed happy with a comfortable draw with black against former World Champion Viswanathan Anand. Topalov was happy to repeat the Sicilian he played against Carlsen in round 1 but Anand played more conservatively and was probably also happy to draw and get off the mark.

Magnus Carlsen looked very happy after his second win in a row. He defeated Maxime Vachier Lagrave who tried to hold a slightly inferior position but this suited Carlsen well today. Carlsen pushed his a-pawn and said after that MVL should have captured it when he had the chance. Later this became the decisive passed pawn.

Wesley So took advantage of Alexander Grischuk's poor form to exploit a small advantage. 29...f5 looked like a poor more from Grischuk whose self-confidence seems extremely low.

Levon Aronian got a significant edge against Anish Giri, he seemed quite pleased with his creative 16...exf3. Afterwards Aronian criticised his 36.Rc2 which was based on quite a deep miscaculation, by the time he spotted the error most of his advantage had gone.

Hikaru Nakamura pressed for a long time against Fabiano Caruana but didn't much believe in his chances after 35...Rc8 which he thought an excellent move. Earlier it was Caruana who won the opening exchanges with a fine pawn sacrifice. Around 17...Nb4 Caruana went a little wrong and went from having good compensation to being in danger of getting in trouble. Caruana doesn't seem in his best form so far.

Round 3 Standings: Topalov 2.5pts, Giri, Aronian, Carlsen 2pts, Vachier-Lagrave, So, Nakamura 1.5pts, Grischuk 1pt, Anand, Caruana 0.5pts.

Round 4 pairings Wednesday 26th August 2015 19:00 BST: Grischuk-Topalov, Caruana-Anand, Vachier-Lagrave-Nakamura, Giri-Carlsen, So-Aronian.