The Week in Chess

The third round of the Tata Steel Chess tournament finished with half the field tied for first place on 2/3. The Masters Group has a rest day on Tuesday but the Challengers continues. Wednesday could be one of the biggest profile days in the history of the event as it moves to the prestigious Rijksmuseum recently revamped and reopened in Amsterdam.

Fabiano Caruana executed almost a perfect Catalan plan positively torturing Sergey Karjakin over 71 moves to a win and bounce from his loss the previous day.

Pentala Harikrishna beat Leiner Dominguez from a more or less equal position. Dominguez' moves 27...b6 and 32...a5 were too commital according to Harikrishna who thought only he could play for a win after this. He thought in general Dominguez underestimated the danger he faced and that his position was already difficult to defend when he broke on the king-side. It was only after 75 moves that Harikrishna won.

Boris Gelfand's struggles continued against Hikaru Nakamura but this time from a position of huge superiority. Observers were confidently expecting Gelfand to find a win in a good positions even before computers suddenly reacted showing the devastating 43... Bxf3+ 44.Kxf3 e4+ 45.Bxe4 Qa3+. 43...Bf7 was less good there must have been other ways to press for Gelfand but there was nothing that easy to see over the board. Nakamura said he thought it might not have been quite as bad as it looked and was cross that he had lost control from a decent opening after underestimating the strength of 15...Bd4 followed by c5. He was happy with his defence and when the winning computer line was shown to him said he missed the queen could penetrate to the queen-side on a3.

Absolutely deserved to lose today, but sometimes there is still a little bit of luck in chess! Time to make the most of opportunities! Hikaru Nakamura on Twitter

Anish Giri was lucky to escape with a draw against Loek van Wely's Trompowsky opening. "It went really bad wrong from the start" said Giri who faced the same opening against him two years ago "again I chose the wrong line, slowly I'll get to the right one". Giri tried to provoke Van Wely with 11...Re8 hoping it offered Van Wely too many options but soon Van Wely had a huge advantage but didn't find the winning 23.Bxe6 fxe6 24.f7+ Kh8 25.Ng5 Qd3 26.Nxe6 Nd7 27.Qg4 which seems to be the computer's best line. 25...Qxg3 forced a draw.

"I have to play something" was Richard Rapport's explanation of his Trompowsky opening today against Levon Aronian. Rapport was happy with the position out of the opening with the critical play he got but soon it became quite boring and a draw followed. Aronian said that the key moment was after his 12...Bf5 when 13.d5 was extremely sharp.

Arkadij Naiditsch finally got on the score board on the white side of a theoretical Berlin Defence that followed Karjakin-Naiditsch until move 23. The position quick became a total draw.

Rest day in the Masters Group before the move to Amsterdam and the Rijksmuseum on Wednesday. The Challengers group plays on Tuesday and rests Wednesday. Benjamin Bok and Baadur Jobava lead on 2.5/3 in the Challengers.

Round 3 Standings: Aronian, Wesley So, Harikrishna, Caruana, Nakamura and Giri 2pts/3, Karjakin, Rapport, 1.5pts, Van Wely, Dominguez, 1pt, Gelfand, Naiditsch 0.5pts

Round 4 Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Wed 15th Jan: Giri-So, Gelfand-Naiditsch, Aronian-Nakamura, Karjakin-Rapport, Dominguez-Caruana, Van Wely-Harikrishna.