The Week in Chess

Hikaru Nakamura defeated Fabiano Caruana and Veselin Topalov beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the only two decisive games of the day in the Norway Chess tournament. Magnus Carlsen got on the scoreboard with a draw against Anish Giri but it was a game he should have won.

Nakamura wasn't happy with his opening against Caruana and felt that he allowed easy equalisation. Nakamura thought that Caruana got a bit ambitious after that and became slightly worse but it was only with 38...b5? that Caruana's position started to collapse, 40...g5 also looks bad but things had become difficult already and Nakamura brought home the full point.

The first game to finish was Topalov's win with black against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. In a very sharp Meran Variation Topalov knew and remembered more theory than Vachier-Lagrave who couldn't find a way through the complications and quickly lost faith in his position, 20.Bd2 with the idea of Ba5 was a step in the wrong direction and the desperate 22.Nd5 showed things had gone desperately wrong.

Anish Giri had an escape from a lost position against Magnus Carlsen. Giri thought he was completely lost but then Carlsen started to play a bit strangely. Carlsen remained with strong winning chances but an easy win didn't present itself (computers want the bizarre 38.Bf7+ which wins) Carlsen gave up a piece but Giri saved himself with accurate play.

"If he doesn't beat me here I think he'll never beat me" Anish Giri after the game. He added that Carlen looked in good form against Topalov and was clearly affected by the loss on time in the subsequent games.

The organisers apologised to the players and Carlsen in particular saying that they should have done better in telling everyone the change in time control. The Rules and Regulations are now prominent on the website which I'm pretty sure they weren't before. Carlsen is by no means the only player who doesn't show much curiosity in finding these things out. I wonder if organisers of all sorts of chess events might think of providing a small wallet sized card with the time control, dates and times of rounds and the final tie-break regulations, the three things that change from event to event, for the players. Questions about these come up time after time.

Viswanathan Anand drew a fascinating Sicilian against Alexander Grischuk. The stem game was Grischuk's game against Dominguez but he struggled to recall the theory over the board. Both players seemed to have small chances to be better in this complex struggle.

Levon Aronian was bitterly disappointed not to beat Jon Ludwig Hammer after getting a large advantage out of the opening where black misjudged the structure. Aronian couldn't find the correct way to proceed and eventually locking in his own rook in the middle of the board after which the game was drawn.

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

Round 4 Friday 19th June 2015 moves to the Utstein Kloster in Rennesoy. 4pm local time start: Grichuk-Hammer, Topalov-Aronian, Caruana-Vachier-Lagrave, Giri-Nakamura, Anand-Carlsen.