Grenke Classic 2015 – Round 3

Not so long ago I wrote about Carlsen’s only real weakness – the over-confidence bug. And today it bit him hard. His second loss in a row to Naiditsch, after the unfortunate mess-up at the Olympiad.

How else to explain this:
10…Bg4?!?!
It doesn’t matter that Carlsen got decent chances later on – Carlsen isn’t that kind of a player who would just sacrifice out of the blue and keep on playing as if nothing had happened. A Tal may be able to do it, but not Carlsen, who in his core is a sound positional player, and this inner gnawing because of going against his own principles affects his play and his subconscious. In chess you must play what you inner voice tells you to do, you must follow the path you’re most comfortable with. 
Aronian is a very alert tactical player, so what he missed today is something out of the ordinary. Caruana only needed to collect the present:
31 Nc3? left white a pawn down, missing 31 Nc7! Qc7 32 Rd7 Qc4 33 R1d5!
I don’t pay much attention to the live ratings, but it’s worth noting that after this loss Aronian is out of the Top 10!
Adams beat Baramidze with a forced sequence after black allowed it:

Anand showed the depth of his preparation against Bacrot, who repeated game 7 of the match in Sochi (the 122-move long Berlin endgame). Even though it was Bacrot who deviated from that game on move 20, following Motylev’s play against himself, and introduced a novelty on move 23, Anand had no trouble holding the endgame. 
After 3 rounds we have Naiditsch and Caruana in the lead with 2/3. In this 7-round tournament there is a rest day tomorrow after which we will witness the game Anand-Carlsen. 
Alex Colovic
A professional player, coach and blogger. Grandmaster since 2013.
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