The clash of the leaders and different generations was between Yifan and Cramling. The super kid came very close to winning her third consecutive game but did not find the way to conclude the game. Cramling then defended the endgame and saved the day. The two players having 2.5 points were caught by the winner of the other thriller between Ekaterina Atal?k and Zhu Chen. In an equal endgame Chen pushed too hard and Atal?k seized this opportunity and won. There is a three way tie after the first three rounds followed by Zhao and Dronavalli, both winning their second consecutive games.

 

The game between Hou Yifan and Pia Cramling, the clash of generations, was very close to end in as a win for black. Black won a pawn in the middle game and then they reached the position below where black came very close winning. 30...Rg3 seems to winning but the game continuation allowed white to neutralise black's extra pawn and Cramling saved the game.

The other thriller of the day between Atal?k and Chen reached a rook ending where black might have some winning chances due to white's weaker pawns and her connected passed pawns on the queen side. However, Atal?k did not allow anything worse to happen and black did not succeed in improving the game. The outcome seemed to be a draw after the ongoing race between the passed pawns on different sides of the board, however, Chen played an unfortunate move, 52...Ra5, which seems to be a decisive mistake.

After this move white can now sacrifice her rook for the strong b pawn in the convenient position while her f and h pawns are fastly queen themselves with support of white king. Instead, 52...Rb6 would reach a queen endgame after 53.Rb6 ab6 54.f6 b2 55.f7 b1Q 56.f8Q Qg1 57.Qh2. This ended as a third consecutive loss for Zhu Chen while Atal?k won her second game in three rounds and joined the Yifan and Cramling. 

 

Ushenina and Dronavalli played a recently popular line where Ushenina captured f6 pawn which seemed risky and helped black to coordinate her pieces but Be6 seems to closer to decisiveness and in order to avoid a mating attack white had to enter a lost endgame which Dronavalli converted it into her second consecutive win.

When white allowed the move b4 in a typical open Sicilian position which came out of Najdorf, black started to have the initiative and black was the side to attack first and the Chinese player won her second consecutive game like Dronavalli.

Journalists are following the tournament daily.

 

Left: Javakshvili and Krush in the post-mortem. Right: Ushenina and Zhao analyzing the ending between Atal?k and Chen.