Shamkir 2015 R3

About an hour into round one Friday I blundered against Anand; A pawn down without counterplay. How different compared to last year when I started off with two quite nice victories and was close to winning round 3. Surprisingly I`ve reached the same 2,5 our 3 as last year. After the blunder I defended quite well against Anand. There might have been a win for white but the Kf5-line he chose ended draw after a few accurate defensive moves.

Yesterday I won a smooth game against home favorite Mamedyarov. In round 3 as black against Caurana today I was a bit fortunate when Caruana started to drift in a drawish ending. He thought there were many ways to draw, but allowing Nf3+ was a mistake, and I don`t think he could save the rook ending. Until a year ago we won several games each with white for a fairly even score, while from June 2014 onwards I`ve had black in six of our seven classical encounters and black has won four, white none!

Wesley So has played well and is co-leader after beating Giri and Adams with white and even putting some pressure on Kramnik as white. Kramnik is 3rd with 2 points followed by Anand, Vachier-Lagrave and Mamedov at 50%.

I have black tomorrow as well, against Michael Adams. I have a great score against him as white, but black is another matter.