Mark Glukhovsky

The third round seems to be the logical continuation of the second one. Many plots that began yesterday have found the continuation. The participants have rest day tomorrow, but from the first third part of the tournament one may judge about the form and tournament prospects of the grandmasters.

The main plot of yesterday's round was the arbiter's oversight. Geurt Gijssen, who is obviously taking his blunder too much to heart, made a second statement, the gist of which is that he apologized to Morozevich and Alexander accepted his apologies. Well, it would be strange if he wouldn't. After all, Alexander himself refused to take part in the checking, leaving the outcome of the important game to the arbiter. Alexei Kuzmin, Morozevich's coach, told us that the grandmaster found out that the arbiter had made the wrong decision only late at night. 'It is clear why we have not undertaken anything', said Kuzmin. To the question of our correspondent of how the news may affect Morozevich, the coach has logically remarked that it would hardly be positive. His apprehension has soon been confirmed: Alexander played the following game below his strength. In three rounds he was able to score only half a point.

His today's opponent Ruslan Ponomariov, by contrast, looks very confident. It seems that Moscow is a lucky city for the FIDE ex-World Champion. Five years ago, in Moscow, Ruslan entered the chess elite, steamrolling the then Russian national team of Bareev, Morozevich and Svidler. So far, the story has been repeated: of the Russian participants to play him only Svidler remains (unbeaten). Ruslan plays him in the fifth round and also with White! Here there is something to think about.

Today's game the tired winner has commented upon in detail in the press room. It appears to be exemplary - Ruslan has surprised his opponent in a seldom played line, seized the initiative, obtained the better endgame. As Vlad Tkachiev remarked in his online commentary, 'to defend such inferior endgame against Ponomariov is one of the hardest things in chess.' Objectively speaking, though, however strong in the endgame Ponomariov may be, in this particular ending he was ably assisted by his opponent. The Ukrainian grandmaster has carried out a nice plan involving the sacrifice of two pawns, but if Morozevich would not miss a fairly simple (for a player of his caliber) method of drawing, there wouldn't be a sole leader in the tournament. Right after the game Ruslan showed him how he could escape.

Now the main hope of Alexander's fans in the rest day - he will need it to get his breath.

In a second decisive game, Aronian-Svidler, a comedy rather than a drama has occurred. The one responsible for the discouraging reprise is Levon Aronian, who looked quite formidable at the outset of the tournament. I do not think that his oversight of the queen will be something very significant for him: the highly talented and original grandmaster should have enough self-control and sense of humor. Still to have a rest day would not hurt him. As it wouldn't your correspondent: my seven-year-old son refuses to solve his chess problems with his mom, and he has just been assigned to study the topic 'winning the queen' during his school vacations.

In the press room, Peter Svidler explained what had happened in the following way: 'In the Blokh's book '1200 combinations' the queen would be on d2, in which case it would have to be lured to d4 by the bishop sacrifice. Initially, it was exactly this move that I had planned to make, but when Levon played 24.exd4, he suddenly grunted. I wonder if I would be able to notice 24…Re1+ if he hadn't made this sound. On the whole, Levon is to blame for losing the game, my role is very insignificant.' Will this sudden gift 'shake up' the slowly starting Peter?

After all he is the only one of the three Russian grandmasters whom Fortune favors. Alexander Grischuk , who is demonstrating excellent preparation, has again witnessed his super-novelty to fizzle out.

Boris Gelfand shouldn't have been lured by the possibility of winning a pawn, and should have come under a deadly attack, but Alex has forgiven him by confusing the move order. Boris has not offered hi a second chance. The happy Gelfand has long demonstrated in the press room ver beautiful variations, which no longer presented any danger for him.

How far-reaching is home preparation nowadays could be seen by the spectators if one more game that was drawn: Shirov-Leko. Alexei allowed his opponent to come out with the Marshall Counterattack. Peter was willing. Shirov explained his decision in a joking way: 'sometimes one would like to play with an extra pawn.' However, seriously, Leko made his homework better. The Hungarian prepared the Marshall as long ago as for his match with Kramnik and since that time nobody has been able to pose him any serious problems in the opening. 'I had an excellent team in Brissago', explained Peter. And confirms - everything that has occurred in the present game has been analyzed at home.

In the last game of Round 3, the players have long been on their own. The reason for this strange phenomenon is evidently that both Magnus and Shakhriyar are still novices in supertournament. During the game it seemed that Carlsen, with White, has gained a tangible advantage, but the postmortem has revealed that Black could at no time lose. The Norwegian has adopted an interesting and aggressive plan, but Mamedyarov was equally enthusiastic about being engaged in the tactical exchange of blows.

The minimum task that the Norwegian prodigy has assigned himself - to win at least one game - has not yet been accomplished. However, everything is just beginning - two thirds of the distance is ahead.