Report by Steve Giddins

Garry Kasparov described round three of this year's Wijk aan Zee tournament as "a black day, total disaster for White, lots of blood on the floor". And indeed it was, as White lost no fewer than four games, without winning any.

Results of the day

Alexey Shirov extended his great start to 3/3, at the expense of Tiviakov, who lost his way in a sharp, but unclear position.

The day's first decisive result came in the game Short-Nakamura. The Englishman lost the initiative in the early middlegame, and his position collapsed with surprising speed.

Magnus Carlsen moved onto 2.5 points, after beating van Wely, with some help from the world's strongest online kibitzer.

The day's fourth winner was Ivanchuk, who beat Smeets. For the second day running, the latter's position fell apart in time-trouble.

The day's other three games were all drawn. Anand spent most of the afternoon a pawn down, but held a 3 v 2 ending with all pawns on the same side, whilst the games Leko-Kariakin and Caruana-Kramnik were both balanced struggles.

From Chessbase.com