Round 3 of the London Chess Classic managed to produce one decisive result - bringing the tournament total to two (out of 15) - and once again the victim was Veselin Topalov. Topalov was Black in a 6.h3 Najdorf against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and came out of the opening in good shape, but an inaccuracy on move 22 followed by a series of second-best moves in time trouble led to his coming a-cropper. Topalov came into the tournament leading the Grand Chess Tour, but in clear last place his chances of overall victory aren't looking very good right now.
MVL is now tied for first with Anish Giri (who beat Topalov in round 1); they have 2/3 while everyone else (aside from Topalov) is on 50%. That could have easily been different, as three of the four drawn games saw one or even both of the players in trouble. Giri, for instance, was in huge trouble against Alexander Grischuk with Black in a Berlin (one of three Berlins on the day) endgame, but thanks to Grischuk's characteristically poor time management Giri found a nice way of getting counterplay (33...a3!) and escaped with a draw.
Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura also contested a Berlin, but an "Anti-Berlin" with 4.d3. Nakamura played the opening unsuccessfully and was soon down a pawn for nothing. Caruana's subsequent play was extremely passive, however, and although he maintained fair-to-good winning chances almost up to the time control, he let Nakamura slip away.
The pairing of the world champions saw another Berlin endgame. Viswanathan Anand had White and a very pleasant edge, having safely managed to achieve the h3/g4/f4/e5 pawn wave. Missing 28...g5 from a ways back allowed Magnus Carlsen to equalize, and then 34.Re3? instead of repeating and taking a draw left him in big trouble. Luckily for Anand, Carlsen's last move of the time control, 40...Rh8?, was a serious error. Anand played perfectly in the second time control and scraped out a draw.
The last draw wasn't a Berlin (but don't feel too bad - at least it was still a Ruy), and it didn't see either player get into serious trouble either. Michael Adams played an 8.a4 Anti-Marshall against Levon Aronian, and the players followed some previous games for a long time. By the time that stopped around move 25 it was Aronian who was a touch better, but with accurate play Adams held without much sweat. (The games, with my comments, are here.)
The pairings for round 4 look like this: