It’s a knockout event, therefore match strategy does play a role.

As you may have guessed already, I am a strong believer in the equality of outcome, otherwise I would not pay money to host this website. People like me are delighted whenever they can watch games like following. Reproducing 30 moves of computer theory is exactly what such events should be all about. It provides an incentive to kids all over the world to study hard and do their homework.

Bravo!

Vote for Paco!

On a sidenote: Aronjan tried a fianchetto Scheveningen against Keymer. The resulting position involved a lot of concrete calculation and no build-ups whatsoever, so he played right into Keymer’s strengths. Nevertheless it was the first flawless game by Keymer.

Today the Poisoned Pawn in the Classical French had two outings and the general consensus was that it’s tough to remember all the lines. Aronjan claimed that he forgot them but repeated Shirov’s line, while Meier blundered badly and got crushed without a fight.

On a sidenote: Keymer got a huge advantage against Caruana but lost again. It seems like the kid is also prone to get in timetrouble. Svidler is doing pretty well. He already beat Naiditsch and Meier, so he only has to beat Keymer with black to finish the event at +3.

The following game is not the typical draw, because it provides a few insights. Anand is obviously trusting this sharp line and MVL decided to believe him, at least for now. Since Anand has white against Caruana and Svidler there may not be a second chance.

Slightly more interesting is Karjakin’s improvement over Carlsen-Anand from round 2.

Ok, it was the last round.

…well, almost. Instead Karjakin plays for a win and loses like Van Foreest and Navara. We can’t blame him for this, or shall we?

Why aren’t they playing the Symmetrical English against Carlsen?

Caruana’s match preparation had a not so successful outing today.