The Week in Chess

Fabiano Caruana held on to draw his game with Anish Giri in the final game to finish. It wasn't really clear that Giri had real chances to win but the game was a marathon 96 moves.

Vassily Ivanchuk was the first player to reach 2.5/3 after beating Loek van Wely in a great attacking game in a Sicilian.

Radoslaw Wojtaszek earned his place in the event through qualifying from ACP events. He is clearly enjoying the challenge even after two long games to start. He had his greatest win when he defeated Magnus Carlsen who chose the Leningrad Dutch as a surprise weapon. Wojtaszek is an opening theoretician and he considered the possibility of this precise move order and his 4.b4 may have surprised Carlsen. Carlsen said that that was nothing wrong with his opening choice, just his play. Carlsen gave up a pawn and then was forced to part with a piece on move 29. Carlsen kept some activity but once Wojtaszek forced queens off on move 40 he knew he would win.

Wesley So defeated Levon Aronian in a strange Scotch Game where it seemed at first he had been outplayed. Most likely his pawn grab with 12.Qxa7 wasn't the best, the players both thought 12.g3 was better after the game but the position remained extremely complicated and Aronian just blundered his position away with 20...Ng8 losing a piece. Aronian maintained some activity but Wesley So's attitude seemed to be best shown by his reluctance to discuss the rest of the game, it being a piece up after all. It's quite likely there were easier ways to finish things but So never let Aronian back into the game really.

Liren Ding said that he had suffered a little from jet lag in the early rounds and was now caught up. He destroyed Baadur Jobava in a Modern Defence in only 22 moves. Ding wasn't impressed with 7...c5 by his opponent and even less by 14...0-0-0 and he just broke the position open and won.

Hou Yifan missed a major chance to get her tournament going when she got a decisive advantage against Ivan Saric whose 15.h4 followed by 16.a4? were really rather more than his position can take. 18...Rxa4 was the computer recommendation with a decisive advantage. Hou eventually chose to repeat after much of her advantage went away.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Teimour Radjabov drew a theoretical Bf4 Queen's Gambit.

Round 3 Standings: 1-2 Caruana, Ivanchuk 2.5/3 3-6 So, Wojtaszek, Vachier-Lagrave, Ding Liren 2pts 7-8 Radjabov, Giri 1.5pts 9-12 Carlsen, Van Wely, Aronian, Saric 1pt 13-14 Jobava, Hou Yifan 0.5pts

Round 4 Pairings: Tuesday 13th January 2015: Van Wely-Carlsen, Aronian-Wojtaszek, Caruana-So, Hou Yifan-Giri, Jobava-Saric, Radjabov-Ding, Ivanchuk-Vachier-Lagrave