While many players were happy to make short draws and postpone the decision to tomorrow’s tiebreaks, not everyone took a safety-first approach. Some couldn’t - the ten players who lost the first game had to throw whatever they could at their opponents - and there were other fighting games as well. So while 19 of the 32 matches are going to tiebreaks, 13 matches saw one or more decisive results.
Or rather, 16 matches did, because three of the matches headed for a third day saw a day one loser strike back in the rematch. Jorden Van Foreest bounced back against Peter Svidler, the amazing Bardiya Daneshvar (Alexander Grischuk’s conquerer in round 2) struck back against Saleh Salem, and Radoslaw Wojtaszek managed to recover from first missing a win and then blundering in a drawn ending against Ivan Schitco to level their match.
Day 1 winners who advanced: Magnus Carlsen (drew comfortably with Aryan Tari), Vincent Keymer (who won again vs. Amin Tabatabaei); Carlsen and Keymer will play each other in round 4. All drawing game 2 to advance were Rasmus Svane (vs. Jingyao Tin), Daniele Vocaturo (vs. Daniil Dubov), Parham Maghsoodloo (vs. Alexander Donchenko), Leinier Dominguez (vs. Gadir Guseinov), and Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (vs. David Navara).
Now for the players who drew on day 1 but won on day 2 to punch their ticket to the fourth round. First, there’s Hikaru Nakamura, who won comfortably against Benjamin Gledura. That was expected, but Javokhir Sindarov’s defeating Maxime Vachier-Lagrave with the black pieces was anything but. Sindarov had some interesting preparation in a relatively rare and very sharp line of the Ruy, and wound up with a roughly equal position. MVL went for the attack, and while that decision wasn’t bad it turned out that Sindarov calculated his way through the complications better than his opponent, which is an extremely rare and impressive feat. That was a terrific achievement by the 17-year-old youngster from Uzbekistan. In other matches: Arjun Erigaisi dispatched Vladimir Fedoseev, Alexey Sarana sent Kirill Shevchenko packing, Ray Robson defeated the only 2400-player left in the field, Abdulla Gadimbayli, and Dommaraju Gukesh (like Sindarov and Praggnanandhaa, just 17 years old) finished off his countryman S.L. Narayanan.
Of the matches with two draws, it’s worth noting the battle between Fabiano Caruana and Mustafa Yilmaz, which could easily have come to an end today. First Caruana was clearly better, but then he started to go astray and Yilmaz was winning. Then Yilmaz blundered and Caruana was winning. Fortunately for Yilmaz, Caruana failed to play the winning idea and repeated moves. The game was a wild one, so the mistakes are understandable, especially if they were in time trouble. Hopefully they’ll both be at their best tomorrow, and won’t have any psychological hangovers from this game.
A few brief comments about the Women’s World Cup. First, Ju Wenjun (who really, really shouldn’t be playing, but I’ll leave that dead horse alone) won when her opponent defended the ending with rook vs. rook and knight stunningly poorly. The last American has been eliminated, as Irina Krush was defeated by Polina Shuvalova. Also, sadly, two of the strongest female players of the past decade or more, Anna Muzychuk and . . . Mariya Muzychuk, won their matches and will have to play each other in the next round. It’s not super-early - for the women, they’re down to the final 16 in the next round - but it’s a pity that the sisters, both of whom are among the event’s favorites, aren’t playing later.
Enjoy the tiebreaks; meanwhile, here’s a selection from today’s action, including three games from the women’s event.