Vidit Gujrathi prevailed over Daniil Dubov in a wild game to grab a sole lead in Tata Steel Masters. Andrey Esipenko, Jorden Van Foreest and Richard Rapport also scored victories and now sit on 2/3 together with Magnus Carlsen and Jan-Krzysztof Duda, who drew their game.

True to his creative style Daniil Dubov introduced a novelty in the Italian Opening against Vidit Gujrathi as early as on the move 8. The Indian GM took the seemingly risky approach, first trading his dark-squared bishop and then accepting a central pawn sacrifice. As a result, he fell behind in development, whereas Black’s king got stuck in the centre. Still, Vidt managed to maintain balance finding all the right answers in a critical situation. Daniil pushed hard and sacrificed an exchange, but surprisingly it did not change the evaluation of position as roughly equal. Indeed, the white queen was chasing down the black king, but there were no decisive threats in sight.

A real drama happened on move 32 – after a series of checks, the Russian GM decided to protect his rook with 32.f3, which turned to be a fatal mistake. Most likely, Dubov missed that his rook was taboo due to checkmate in three. Vidit immediately traded the rooks, escaped with his king and quickly converted the material advantage.

Richard Rapport instructively outplayed Nils Grandelius on the black side of the Sicilian Defense and finished off his opponent with a textbook combination.

Nils Grandelius – Richard Rapport

29…Rh1! An excellent illustration of the deflection motif! White resigned after 30.Rg1 Rxg1 31.Qxg1 Qc3 with imminent checkmate on b2 0-1

In the Russian derby, Esipenko – Karjakin, Black was patiently defending a slightly worse position but all of a sudden left his bishop en prise. Sergey got a couple of passers in return, but Andrey found the correct way to retain his bishop, rearranged his pieces and promptly neutralized all the opponent’s threats to score a full point.

Jorden Van Foreest surprised Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa with a rare line 3.Bc4, which is mostly seen in the games by low-rated players. The Dutchman offered a pawn sacrifice and obtained positional compensation that became more than sufficient when his Indian opponent opted to trade the light-squared bishop at the cost of doubling his pawns along the e-file. Although Jorden put serious pressure on Black’s weaknesses, Praggnanandhaa held his own up to some point but eventually decided to return a pawn for some activity. Unfortunately, this activity quickly petered out while Black’s weak pawns fell. The game transposed into a rook endgame in which White’s queenside pawns were unstoppable.

Jan-Krzysztof Duda followed the footsteps of Ian Nepomniachtchi in the Anti-Marshall against Magnus Carlsen and got a slight edge. The World Champion had to demonstrate resilience and accuracy to reach a draw in an endgame.

Anish Giri won a theoretical duel and a pawn in Anti-Meran against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, but maybe Black’s position was not as bad as it looked as the opponents split the point on the move 21.

Fabiano Caruana desperately tried to extract water from the Berlin endgame stone as White against Sam Shankland, but all his attempts were thwarted by the opponent’s precise play.

Standings after Round 3: 1. Vidit Gujrathi – 2½; 2-6. Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Magnus Calsen, Richard Rapport, Andrey Esipenko and Jorden Van Foreest – 2; 7-8. Fabiano Caruana, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov – 1½; 9-13. Sam Shankland, Sergey Karjakin, Daniil Dubov, Anish Giri,  Praggnanandhaa R. – 1; Nils Grandelius – ½.

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Photo: Jurriaan Hoefsmit and Lennart Ootes – Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2022