The Week in Chess

The Superbet Chess Classic saw more local success when Constantin Lupulescu beat Anish Giri in the third round. The event is the first of the Grand Chess Tour 2021. Thus far some of the biggest stars have struggled to get going and the games involving the local Romanian players have had most content. So far they haven't looked out of place in this company.

Lupulescu beat Giri in a topical line of the English although the result had little to do with the opening. Lupulescu was already on his own when he played the new move 14.f3 which was certainly ambitious. 20.Re2 seems wrong as after Giri's 20....Qh5 white seems in quite a bit of trouble. Having spent some time on Qh5 Giri hurried his next move 21...Be4?! after which the position became roughly equal again, 21...Rh6 or 21...Ne4 were much better options. Sharp but equal play followed and Lupulescu was pleased to find 29.Qf7 after which he is definitely not worse. In time trouble Giri played the poor 31...Qc5, a move that stops 32.Re8 due to Rxg2+ but which loses to 32.Re7 - Giri had to sacrifice a rook but he was never getting perpetual check he needed and had to resign on move 39.

The remaining games were drawn. Aronian-Caruana was an interesting Queen's Gambit Accepted which gradually saw the material swapped off down to a completely drawn Rook and Pawn endgame. Bogdan-Daniel Deac faced a better prepared Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in an Open Catalan but after his 21.Nc6 Mamedyarov was the one who had to show a little care to draw. Grischuk and So drew quickly in a theoretical line of the Berlin Ruy Lopez. Teimour Radjabov and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave drew a Gruenfeld where Radjabov had to give perpetual check in the end.

Round 3 Standings: 1st Caruana 2pts, 2nd Deac 2pts, 3rd Lupulescu 1.5pts, 4th Mamedyarov 1.5pts, 4th Aronian 1.5pts, 6th So 1.5pts, 7th Grischuk 1.5pts, 8th Radjabov 1.5pts, 9th Giri 1pt, 10th MVL 1pt.

Round 4 1pm BST Tuesday 8th June 2021. So-Caruana, Giri-Aronian, MVL-Lupulescu, Mamedyarov-Radjabov, Grischuk-Deac.