The third round of the Masters Final in Shanghai saw Alexei Shirov defeating Wang Hao in a game where "many things happened that cannot be expained", as the winner said afterwards. He now shares the lead with Levon Aronian, who had a narrow escape against Vladimir Kramnik. Round 3 video up.

Tournament info

The first part of the 2010 Grand Slam Masters Final takes place 3-8 September in Shanghai, China. Rounds 1-3 are played at the Spanish Pavillion of the World Expo. Aronian, Kramnik, Shirov and Wang Hao play for two qualification spots for part II.

The second part, where Anand and Carlsen are seeded players, will be held October 9-15 in Bilbao, Spain. Both tournaments are 4-player double round-robins. ChessVibes will produce videos at both tournaments.

Like at the first two editions the rate of play is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves and then 60 minutes to finish the game, with 10 extra seconds per move from move number 41.

This Masters Final will also use again both the “Sofia Rule” and the “football” scoring system: players will get 3 points for winning a game, 1 point for drawing and 0 points for losing. Games start 14.30 local time which is 08.30 CET.

Games round 3

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Round 3 report

Today I a chance to stroll around at the Expo, just after the start of the 3rd round. It's really an amazing thing, a World Expo, which could be described as dozens of beautifully designed small museums packed together at an area of about 5 square kilometer. The designated area is at both sides of the Huangpu River but the one with the countries pavillions is on the Pudong side, so not the part of the city center. Also on this side of the river is Hotel Gran Melia, where everyone is staying, which is about 25 minutes by taxi to the Expo.

Over 190 countries and 50 organizations take part in the exposition which has "Better City – Better Life" as its motto, which signifies Shanghai's new status in the 21st century as the "next great world city". It runs from May 1 to October 31, 2010 and 70–80 million visitors are expected to visit. Today was the last time that the Spanish pavillion hosted the tournament.

It was a strange round, in which Kramnik couldn't win a totally dominating, and in fact easily winning position against Aronian, and Shirov won a lost game. The result of it all is that Aronian and Shirov are leading with 5 points, followed by Kramnik with 3 and Wang Hao with 1. The Chinese deserved better from his bold play, but he can still reach Bilbao if he wins two games in the second part.

After the game Shirov said that he didn't like Wang Hao's pawn sac in the opening. He didn't even mention taking on d7, which does seem far too dangerous for White. After a few inaccuracies White was close to winning, and Shirov intended to go 23.fxg4 and 24.Rxd4, but then "suddenly I committed this lapsus manus, touching the bishop", he explained.

Because of 27...Bc6 he got back in the game, and just after Wang Hao had liquidated to a theoretically drawn ending, he didn't use one of the two normal ways to defend and quickly lost anyway. His remarkable explanation was that he was suffering from a headache and wanted to end the game as soon as possible.

Aronian wanted to surprise Kramnik by playing the current main line of the Slav, but soon regretted his choice. Due to "lack of experience" he soon found himself with his back against the wall. At the press conference Kramnik found a relatively easy win analyzing blindfold while Aronian was talking: 30.Qf4! Qe7 31.Nxd7 Rxd7 32.b6! followed by 33.Bb5 and wins. Naturally the Russian was very disappointed.

Videos

Links

• Official website
• Live games
• Games in PGN via TWIC