Grandmasters Hans Niemann and Lukasz Jurmala are the only two players remaining with a full house after three rounds at the 2022 Reykjavik Open.
Hans opened the day by winning an absolutely wild game against the birthday girl, Irene Sundakar.
Sundakar was winning close to the end but timetrouble was the enemy. 31.Rb1 to defend the Queen would have likely earned the full point. Instead Hans found some trickery and his final move was spectcular.
Niemann’s third round game was much smoother as he won a pawn against Beerdsen and never looked back, again converting with a nice trick at the end.
Jurmala’s most notable game of the day was when he defeated two-time Reykjavik Open winner, Abhijeet Gupta with the black pieces.
The closest player to join the two at the top was probably Icelandic GM Hedinn Steingrimsson with white against Adhiban. Following good preparation, Hedinn managed to pin almost all of his opponent’s pieces
Hedinn chose 21.Qf3? which allowed 21…Qf5 defending. 21.Bxf6 Kxf6 22.Rd2 probably wins the game with accurate play and even 21.Rd2 immediately might have been promising. Adhiban was probably happy to escape from this one!
The action continues with the 4th round tomorrow as well as the pub quiz!
2nd round commentary
