Aside from Anand's boring draw with Nepomniachtchi, it was a tremendous third round at the Tal Memorial in Moscow. Kramnik-Carlsen was the day's only other draw, but it was an adventure. Kramnik had great winning chances early on, with Carlsen's pieces almost all finding their way back to their starting positions. Somehow he managed to defend, and later it seemed that Kramnik might have had some trouble. Finally, the game resolved itself in a perpetual check.
The other three games were won by Black. With Black in a Gruenfeld against Nakamura, Svidler sacrificed a pawn, and then "regained" it at the cost of an exchange-down endgame. That might suggest that White was in control, but he wasn't. Nakamura's pieces were uncoordinated and most of his pawns were weak, and soon enough Svidler was two pawns ahead in a minor piece ending, and he won.
Aronian once famously said that he chooses the Berlin endgame when he wants to play for a win, and today he did just that. Aronian was always in very good shape, and first White's e-pawn and then his f-pawn got into trouble. Aronian picked up the latter, and collected more weaknesses along the way. Showing instructive technique in a rook ending, Aronian returned his extra material in exchange for tremendously active pieces and dangerous passers, and Ivanchuk had to resign.
Finally, Karjakin ground down Gelfand with Black in an Open Catalan. White accepted a slight structural weakness when he allowed 14...Nxf4+, but in return he enjoyed some space and later some activity. Karjakin was eventually able to neutralize the activity, and once the most relevant feature of the position was White's bad structure, Karjakin collected a pawn and converted the point.
After 3 rounds, four players lead with 2/3: Aronian, Nepomniachtchi, Carlsen and Karjakin. Anand, Ivanchuk and Svidler have 1.5, Kramnik and Nakamura have 1, and Gelfand is alone in last place with a solitary half a point.
In the women's world championship, Hou Yifan had the better chances most of the way against Humpy Koneru, but was unable to build on her one point lead. With the draw, the score after 4 of 10 games is 2.5-1.5 in favor of the champion, Hou Yifan.