Shamkir, Round 3: More of the Same
Five more draws, believe it or not! That makes it 15 out of 15 thus far. Also in keeping with the pattern of the first two rounds, four of the five games were straightforward draws, while in the fifth one player should have collected the full point. Today it was Veselin Topalov, who missed a simple win against Ding Liren after the first time control. Topalov with Black was worse in the early middlegame, but near the end of the time control started putting the pressure on Ding. It may not have been enough to win, had White played 42.Bf3. After 42.Bf1, however, the obvious 42...Ng4 would have won a pawn and wrecked White's kingside structure. The only move that would theoretically punish 42...Ng4 is 43.f3, but that only makes things worse after 43...Qb8. It's hard to believe that two great players like Ding Liren and Veselin Topalov could have missed that. Maybe they continued their calculations with 44.Qb2 Qxg3+ 45.Qg2 and stopped there, but 45...Qe1 isn't that hard to see either, and then White is out of tricks. Whatever they missed, it was a big opportunity for Topalov.
Here are the pairings for round 4, tomorrow: Radjabov-Carlsen, Wojtaszek-Mamedov, Karjakin-Navara, Topalov-Mamedyarov, and Giri-Ding Liren.
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