The third round was more peaceful than the first two rounds, at least when only looking at the results. Despite some hard struggles, four of the five games ended in a draw.
The only win of the day was scored by Evgenij Agrest against Axel Smith. Early on, Agrest got a small positional advantage (Smith's 11. - c5 was probably a bit too ambitious). With a weakened queenside, Smith tried to create counterplay along the g-file but nothing dangerous come out of this. Instead, in time-trouble, Agrest could break through on the f-file and decide the game. A convincing positional performance by Agrest and a much needed one after his two opening losses.
As expected, Vasilios Kotronias played the Sicilian Defence against Daniel Stellwagen's 1.e4. The Dutchman had prepared a variation that led to a comfortable endgame but Kotronias had no trouble maintaining the balance. Shortly after the first time control, the game ended in a draw.
Tiger Hillarp Persson chose the somewhat odd 5. - a6 against Lars Bo Hansen. Instead, the more common 5. - Nbd7 would have led into the sharp Meraner system. After ten moves or so a typical isolani position occurred where Black's active pieces provided full compensation for his weakened d-pawn. Some moves later the players agreed to a draw.
Kjetil Lie looked to have a promising position against Lajos Portisch. The Norwegian chose the sharpest setup in the Exchange variation of the Queen's Gambit (Nge2 and f2-f3 – popularized by Kasparov) and when he played 19.Qf4, it seemed as if Black was forced to lose material. However, Portisch showed with some exact moves that everything was under control. After some additional exchanges it was obvious that the game was heading for a draw.
Ralf Åkesson made some fine maneouvres against Jan Timman after playing the English. Following the mass exchanges, Åkesson obtained a promising endgame with a good knight versus Timman's bad bishop. Timman defended himself creatively by sacrificing his b-pawn and obtaining counterplay against the f2 square by pushing his own pawn to f3. After the game, Timman thought that Åkesson should have played the positional pawn sacrifice 25.b5! instead of taking on d3. This would have fixed the b6-pawn and given White a killer passed pawn on b5, should it fall. Timman also missed several good chances to play for a win (32. - Rxf2+ 33.Kg1 Kg8! or 40. - Bb4+ 41.Kd1 Rd2+ 42.Kc1 Rxd3). Instead he had to settle for a draw by repetition of moves after the time control.