Fabiano Caruana maintained his lead at the Grand Slam Masters Final in Sao Paulo, Brazil. On Wednesday all three games ended in draws, but not before a good fight was seen on all boards. Thursday is the first and only rest day in Sao Paulo. The fourth round starts at 15:00 local time (20:00 CET) on Friday.

Many children watching the "aquarium" in Sao Paulo | Photos by Albert Silver courtesy of the official website 

Children playing chess alongside the Sao Paulo venue

After six draws in London there was now also a round without decisive games in Sao Paulo. But, like in London, the games were in fact quite enjoyable and in two of them play continued way beyond move 60. As all the players added one point to their score, Fabiano Caruana maintained his two-point lead over Levon Aronian.

Chief Arbiter IM Herman van Riemsdijk and former World Champion GM Susan Polgar (who is doing commentary in Sao Paulo)

Aronian drew relatively quickly with Vallejo but the game was full of ideas and tactics. It seems that, for a change, Aronian's opening with White didn't really work out but his reaction to Vallejo's knight jumps was great.

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Levon Aronian: an unsuccessful opening but a strong follow-up

Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin, the two strongest players on the planet born in 1990, fought for 67 moves. In a 4.g3 Queen's Indian Karjakin allowed his structure to be weakened as he got active piece play in return. However, at some point the Muscovite decided to trade queens when the resulting ending turned out to be more comfortable for White, especially when Carlsen could exchange his bishop for Black's knight.

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One of Magnus Carlsen's sponsors is Verdens Gang (VG), a Norwegian tabloid newspaper

Vishy Anand was on the defensive side for most of his game against Fabiano Caruana. With 3.Bb5+ the tournament leader reminded Anand of an annoying loss against Sergey Tiviakov, a few weeks before the match against Boris Gelfand. This time the World Champion chose the more solid 3...Bd7 but still got under slight pressure. Allowing the standard trick 18.Nd5, Anand might have misalculated somewhere as he just lost a pawn. The Indian eventually defended the 4 vs 3 ending to a draw.

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World Champion Vishy Anand started with three draws 

Grand Slam Masters Final 2012 | Schedule & results

Grand Slam Masters Final 2012 | Round 3 standings (football)

1. Caruana,F   7
2. Aronian,L   5
3. Carlsen,M   4
4. Anand,V   3
5. Vallejo,F   2
6. Karjakin,S   1 

Grand Slam Masters Final 2012 | Round 3 standings (classical)