FIDE Chess World Cup 2021 – Round 3
The third round was held on 18th July, Sunday, and this round had less than half the original number of participants, with all the players being of ratings above 2550.
We had World Champion Magnus Carlsen playing a brilliant game against Aryan Tari. Magnus played an excellent match with his White pieces, and Tari was playing exceptionally till the 38th move, where he blundered a piece under time pressure.
Tari resigned after this loss as Magus was threatening an Anastasia Mate post this blunder. An Anastasia mate is a checkmate using a Rook and a Knight to trap the opposing King.
Alexander Grischuk played a great game by defeating Argentina’s No.1 Alan Pichot. Alan missed the move Bf4 on the 17th move, which weakened Alan’s position. Although Alexander had his King exposed and out in the game, he posed a strong checkmate upon his opponent.
One of the most engaging games of the day was between Santosh Vidit and Baskaran Adhiban. Adhiban blundered his pawn on the 19th move. Vidit used this advantage and gain another pawn and eventually won the game. Although this was a Victory for Vidit, Adhiban put up a tough fight.
Aleksandra Goryachkina continues to be the favourite in the Women World Cup with a perfect winning streak. She played the third round against Olga Badelka using the Catalan Opening. Aleksandra then opened her ‘a’ file, later in the game, where she used her Rook and Queen to invade into Olga’s King’s territory. This invasion made Aleksandra a pawn up and she eventually converted this pawn advantage into a win.
Second Day – 19th July
That saw an upset when World No.2 Fabiano Caruana lost to Kazakhstan’s Rinat Jumabaev. After the draw they both had in the first game, Caruana was expected to win the second gane. Caruana opened the game with the Carlsbad Queen’s Gambit and he posed a Kingside attack by playing g4 on the 17th move.
Jumabaev wasn’t able to defend the situation very well and used a Queen sacrifice to balance the situation. The game was fine till Caruana made a mistake on the 41st move which gave Jumabaev an advantage enough to win.
The first game to finish on day two of round three was between Daniil Dubov and Vladimir Malakhov and Dubov qualified to the next round. This game was soon followed by Grigoriy Oparin’s defeat against Sergey Karjakin, the champion of the 2015 world cup.
Simultaneously our World Champion was also fighting hard for his victory against Aryan Tari. In the Women’s World Cup all the top three seeds qualified to the fourth round while four matches were played at the tie-breaker on the following day.
