The Grand Slam Final is at the halfway point and four rounds out of seven are finished at the European Club Cup, so let's take stock of what has happened since my brief round 1 report on Monday.
Let's start with the first event. Viswanathan Anand followed his opening round win with a victory with Black over Francisco Vallejo Pons, while Levon Aronian beat Ruslan Ponomariov. Anand's imitation of Fabiano Caruana only lasted for two rounds, but his third round draw with Aronian sufficed to maintain his lead at the end of the first cycle. Ponomariov beat Vallejo in the other game, so after three rounds, the scores look like this:
Anand's continued good form bodes well for the coming world championship!
Meanwhile, there have been some hot players in the European Club Cup. Veselin Topalov has won two games against 2700s - Alexander Morozevich and David Navara - but was upset by Simen Agdestein, who showed that his fine performance in Norway a few months ago was not a fluke. Alexander Grischuk has done even better, going 3.5/4 to jump back into third place on the Live Rating List. He has "only" defeated one 2700 - Leinier Dominguez, but his brilliant win over the 2678-rated Maxim Rodshtein was something special. Fabiano Caruana hasn't beaten any superstars in his three games, but with 2.5/3 he has gained a point or two and avoided a post-St. Louis letdown.
Other top-10 players: Hikaru Nakamura has 1.5/2, Sergey Karjakin has three draws in three games, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave has a win and two draws, and Anish Giri has performed to rating with 3.5/4 against mixed opposition. Since he's only a tenth of a point out of the top 10 we'll include Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, who has a win over Ian Nepomniachtchi and a couple of draws.
A couple of strong players who are suffering: Peter Leko - but most of the damage was done in round 1, when he lost to IM Manuel Bosboom, and Alexei Shirov. Shirov started the event with a win over a 2382 player, but then lost in round 2 against a 2349(!) named Einar Jensson and then lost again in round 3, with White, to Alon Greenfeld (2551). When it rains, it pours.