It hasn’t been quite as freewheeling as the Sigeman & Co. tournament, but the Superbet Classic is getting better, round by round. Four of the five games in round 3 were drawn, but it could have gone the other way around.
The one win was an absolute massacre, as Fabiano Caruana just slaughtered Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in just 23 moves. Caruana played 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.h4, and succeeded in avoiding MVL’s beloved Gruenfeld. Black went for a KID instead, and tried to “Benko” it with 7…b5 8.cxb5 a6. The plan wasn’t so bad, but MVL’s later ideas, especially 15…Nh5 followed by 16…Nf4 and then 17…Rfe8 left him completely lost. He resigned just a few moves later, down two pawns with further, heavy material losses on the way.
Ian Nepomniachtchi could have achieved a small measure of revenge had he beaten Ding Liren, and he had his chances. He was winning (or at least close to it) in the opening, and enjoyed a serious advantage at times later in the ending. As kept happening in their match, however, Ding slipped out of trouble, and the game ended with bare kings.
Jan-Krzysztof Duda’s game with Bogdan Deac followed the same script (albeit without the backstory): Duda was winning or nearly winning at the end of the opening, and had good winning chances in the endgame. Alas for Duda, his opponent eluded his grasp, and the game finished in a draw.
Wesley So did not have the same sorts of chances in his game with Anish Giri that Nepo and Duda had in theirs. Nevertheless, had he played 27.b4, fixing Black’s queenside pawns, his winning chances would have been greater than they were in the game. A draw would have remained the likeliest result, but in my fallible opinion his winning chances would have been significant. Once Black achieved …c5 a couple of moves later, the worst was over for Giri, and he held the draw.
Finally, the game between Alireza Firouzja and Richard Rapport was a short draw that always looked like it would be a draw.
Four players lead with +1 scores heading into round 4, which will see the following games:
Vachier-Lagrave (1) - Giri (1.5)
Rapport (2) - So (2)
Deac (1) - Firouzja (1)
Ding (1.5) - Duda (1)
Caruana (2) - Nepomniachtchi (2)