Added on 3/24/2022
Round 3 was again an apparently calm round, with only one decisive game. In Pool A, Nakamura had to fight hard to survive after finding himself in dire straits against Grigoriy Oparin, the Russian GM playing under the FIDE flag. Nakamura was able to take advantage of some imprecise moves played by his younger opponent and equalized a game that looked lost. Aronian and Esipenko drew in a Berlin defense. An interesting but basically uneventful game. After the first of the two round-robin in the pool, Aronian leads thanks to his win over Nakamura in round 1.
Pool A 1 2 3 4 PTS Nakamura aa 0 1/2 1/2 1.0 Aronian 1 aa 1/2 1/2 2.0 Esipenko 1/2 1/2 aa 1/2 1.5 Oparin 1/2 1/2 1/2 aa 1.5In Pool B the only decisive game of the day: Keymer, the young German GM upset Daniil Dubov. Dubov blundered quite badly at move 21, miscalculation the battle for the center, and the 17-years-old Keymer saw the right continuation and didn't let the Russian out of the hook. A great win for Vincent, who is now in the joint lead of the pool with Dominguez. Mamedyarov an Dominguez drew in 31 moves, in a QGD.
Pool B 1 2 3 4 PTS Mamedyarov aa 1/2 1/2 1/2 1.5 Dominguez 1/2 aa 1 1/2 2.0 Dubov 1/2 0 aa 0 1.0 Keymer 1/2 1/2 1 aa 2.0In Pool C, So and Vachier-Lagrave went for a Grunfeld, and drew in 37 moves, in a rook+pawns ending. Shankland, as he has shown in the previous games, is not going to accept early draws, and kept playing a drawish endgame against Predke until every chance of getting an advantage faded out. Predke, quite surprisingly, leads the pool, thanks to his win over MVL.
Pool C 1 2 3 4 PTS So aa 1/2 1/2 1/2 1.5 Vachier-Lagrave 1/2 aa 1/2 0 1.0 Shankland 1/2 1/2 aa 1/2 1.5 Predke 1/2 1 1/2 aa 2.0In Pool D, Yu and Tabatabaei reached the endgame already at move 24, agreed to the draw at move 30. Giri and Vitiugov played a Sicilian defense, and after some skirmish in the center, with the Queens out early in the game, drew by repetition at move 30.
Pool D 1 2 3 4 PTS Giri aa 1/2 1/2 1/2 1.5 Vitiugov 1/2 aa 1/2 1 2.0 Yu Yangyi 1/2 1/2 aa 1/2 1.5 Tabatabaei 1/2 0 1/2 aa 1.0Tomorrow Round 4, at 10 AM EDT - 15:00 Berlin (CET) - 14:00 UTC