2013 Candidates, Round 3: Ivanchuk-Aronian

Another tragedy for Vassily Ivanchuk, but he really only had himself to blame because of his disastrous clock handling. As John Nunn told us in his book for intermediate players Secrets of Practical Chess, "the advice here is quite simple: don't get into time trouble in the first place". Easier said than done, and I suppose it is akin to a consultant psychiatrist telling a patient to "pull themselves together". Towards the end, Levon Aronian was annoyed at himself because he had let a big advantage slip but it didn't matter because he could simply 'play the clock'. It is comforting to discover that super-GMs sometimes resort to the same low stratagems as the rest of us, isn't it?

As for Vassily, he's celebrating his 44th birthday tomorrow but so far he has received no generous presents from his opponents. He told us he would not be thinking about chess. Perhaps so, but his two clock disasters will surely be washing round his unconscious.

Levon Aronian and Vassily Ivanchuk discuss their round three game with Nastya Karlovich.