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Gibraltar Masters 2016 - Round 3 summary by John Saunders |
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Friday, 29 January 2016 07:06 |
Round three proved very successful for the women players in the Tradewise Gibraltar Masters line-up as three of them defeated much higher rated grandmasters to join eight other male players on the maximum score of 3/3.
Anna Muzychuk of Ukraine beat 2700-rated Laurent Fressinet, Harika Dronavalli of India became the first player to defeat Nigel Short with Black in Gibraltar, while 17-year-old Aleksandra Goryachkina from Russia defeated Eduardo Iturrizaga.
By scoring these three wins, the women players did as well as the top ten rated players in the line-up, who also have just three names amongst those on 3/3: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who beat the Norwegian IM Aryan Tari, Dmitri Jakovenko, who beat Alexandra Kosteniuk, and Richard Rapport, who beat Mohammed Al-Sayed.
The other five players on 3/3 are Etienne Bacrot of France, Markus Ragger of Austria, SP Sethuraman of India, Luka Lenic of Slovenia, and 16-year-old Indian GM Aravindh Chithambaram, who has been tipped as the 'next Anand'.
Top seed Hikaru Nakamura was held to a draw by Russian GM Grigoriy Oparin and cannot now replicate his remarkable 6/6 streak of 2015. Vishy Anand joins him on 2½/3 after winning another smooth game, as do the fourth and sixth seeds, Pentala Harikrishna and Yu Yangyi, who both won, and also women's world champion Mariya Muzychuk.
Summary by John Saunders for official website
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