In the top board encounter of yesterday’s round, Grandelius and Harikrishna treated us to a crazy and interesting game, which eventually ended in a draw. On board 2 Fressinet duly converted his two extra pawns when Timman’s attack didn’t lead anywhere, while on board 3 Sargissian pressed for a long time, but had to settle for a draw against Kuzubov in one of the last games to finish.

The analysis room: Adams-Vaisser and Grandelius-Harikrishna

On board 4, in an exact remake of last year’s Van Foreest-Short pairing, the young Dutch hopeful (who is the highest rated European player in the U16 age group) once again managed to hold the English legend to a draw after a fighting game which is worth having a look at.

Down on board 9, Howell didn’t leave his Cheddleton team mate Arkell the hint of a chance when he first sacrificed a piece and then a rook to deliver the most picturesque mate you are going to see all week:

The biggest upset of the round came from board 11, where GM Kidambi (2497) took advantage of a blunder by GM Jones (2623) to beat him in an interesting Tarrasch French, where he had the black pieces.

Kidambi during his round 2 game

So after 3 rounds, we have only two players left with a perfect score and we can look forward to Fressinet and Movsesian battling it out on the top board today! On board 2 Melkumyan will be taking on top seed Adams, while on board 3 Harikrishna faces l’Ami.

A look into the playing hall at 6pm

For today’s 4th round, the players will move to the Villa Marina’s magnificent Royal Hall, where they will be joined by the participants from the Minor and Major sections.

In other exciting news, the tournament’s YouTube channel is now up and running! There, you can find all our daily video reports (produced by the one and only Vijay Kumar), which include interviews with all of the tournament’s top players!

Fiona Steil-Antoni