After three rounds, we are already down to three undefeated scores, this is shaping up to be quite a tournament. Your leaders are GM Prraneeth Vuppala, IM Oleksii Bilych and IM Samrug Narayanan.
FM Avi Kaplan goes on the offensive right away against Vuppala, finding key ideas at critical moments in a complicated middlegame. The game was in Kaplan’s favor but Vuppala was able to find a prophylactic resource and shifted the game in his favor.
NM Harshin Jagirapu put up a fight against Bilych, playing with resilience facing his bishop pair and a queenside majority against two knights. GM Bilych complicates the material balance even more but it also took more minutes off the clock. An error allowed Jagirapu to equalize the position for several moves, but the two bishops and two queenside passed pawns proved too much to bear.
CM Shawn Xu faced solid play against IM Narayanan, opting for the Kin’s Indian Defense. Late in the opening, Xu had tension in the center but a c5 pawn thrust allowed Narayanan to get control of the center and Xu’s weakened king. Sammy demonstrates textbook technique the remainder of the game.
