Meier vs Caruana Round 3. Photo © | http://www.grenkechessclassic.de

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave overpowered Hou Yifan tactically to score his second win of the GRENKE Classic and join Nikita Vitiugov in the lead. 25.Qe3?! was the start of Hou Yifan's problems and 33.Bf1? (33.Bf3!) was an error that ended her resistance. Magnus Carlsen played the King's Indian against Matthias Bluebaum and didn't get a lot of chance to complicate matters until the clever 29...Ng4. While it was obvious who was pressing Carlsen didn't get the error he needed out of Bluebaum and the game finished in a draw.

Fabiano Caruana won a wild fight against Georg Meier. Caruana surprised his opponent with old preparation and soon got a huge attack, but he couldn't last a decisive blow and while things were a little up in the air in time trouble Caruana at last found a mate with 33...Rh3 forcing his opponent to resign soon after.

Arkadij Naiditsch vs Nikita Vitiugov and Viswanathan Anand vs Levon Aronian were both well played draws.

After 3 days of play in Karlsruhe play moves to Baden Baden for the final 6 rounds starting in a couple of days.

The GRENKE Open finished with one of the most sensational results of all time, 13 year old Vincent Keymer beat Richard Rapport to qualify for next year's main group. He had already secured a GM norm. It's too early to tell but this could be looked back upon as the moment Keymer announced himself on the world stage.

Round 3 Standings: 1st-2nd Vachier-Lagrave, Vitiugov 2.5pts; 3rd-5th Carlsen, Caruana, Aronian 2pts; 6th-8th Naiditsch, Bluebaum, Anand 1pt; 9th-10th Meier, Hou Yifan 0,5pts.

Round 4 Pairings Wednesday 4th April 2pm: Carlsen-Vachier-Lagrave, Aronian-Hou Yifan, Vitiugov-Anand, Caruana-Naiditsch, Bluebaum-Meier.