Drawn, but not without a fight - well, except for Nijat Abasov’s game. As in round 1, he used the white pieces, this time against Hikaru Nakamura, to achieve the simplest, most drawish position he could in the hope of eking out half a point. He succeeded.
The other draws were far more interesting. Fabiano Caruana played a line considered slightly inferior to the usual moves in reply to Alireza Firouzja’s Rossolimo. Firouzja avoided what was probably the best line - one he had chosen before - but wound up slightly better when Caruana played 9…cxd6 rather than 9…Qxd6. From then on Caruana played just about perfectly, and managed to equalize and draw.
Dommaraju Gukesh played the Catalan against Ian Nepomniachtchi, and Nepo’s line may have been something he prepared for his match with Ding Liren last year - Ding is a huge Catalan specialist. It turned out that while Nepo equalized, it was “computer equality”, not a human version of the assessment. Indeed, White’s results in the variation were excellent, and Gukesh too outplayed Nepo and enjoyed a near-winning advantage. Fortunately for Nepo, Gukesh didn’t play a4 on either move 29 or 30, and after a further inaccuracy by White Nepo was able to brick up the position and save the game.
A player who did not manage to save a difficult game was Santosh Vidit Gujrathi, who soon in trouble against Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa. Vidit was surprised by Pragg’s remarkable choice of the Delayed Schliemann, and when he failed to remember/work out White’s best response Black achieved an equal position with a serious initiative. The players took turns committing errors, though, and Vidit almost managed to escape. Had he played Nxb7 a few moves earlier than he did, his chances of survival would have been good. By the time he finally decided to make the swap it was too late, and he resigned a few moves after making the time control. Vidit had been a co-leader, along with Caruana, Nepomniachtchi, and Gukesh; with the loss, he falls to 50%, which is what Pragg has climbed to.
Here are today’s games, with my notes, and here are the pairings for round 4 (today = Sunday):
Nakamura (1) - Praggnanandhaa (1.5)
Nepomniachtchi (2) - Vidit (1.5)
Caruana (2) - Gukesh (2)
Abasov (1) - Firouzja (1)
In the Women’s Candidates, the only winner was, oddly enough, Rameshbabu Vaishali - Pragg’s sister. Their results have mirrored each other’s: both drew in round 1, lost in round 2, and won in round 3. Zhongyi Tan continues to lead with 2.5/3, half a point ahead of Aleksandra Goryachkina.