The third round against S-Korea Hysan on board 4 came well out of the opening but did not put his pieces on the active squares that were available and was consequently pushed off the board.

On Board 3, David tried out again 1.b4 against FM Chogdov who avoided all main lines with a quick 4. … d6 in the exchange variation. White achieving an ideal set-up was fooled into closing the diagonal of his Bb2 and he did not pay enough attention to the attacking potential of cramped-looking black pieces positioned all the way back in the black queen wing.

On board 1, Cyrus who faced FM Camacho Collados, played a very attacking variation with his white queen controlling the entire board on d6 from move 10 on. Camacho did not free himself properly even when the queens were traded off and the first casualty on S-Korean side seemed a fact, until a wrong move order by white changed the natural course of events.

The last to finish was Sunny on board 2, the most unfortunate loss. Sunny punished an inaccuracy of his opponent CM Lee and was a piece up until close to time-up Sunny gave back a piece and had an endgame with black rook against his opponent’s bishop and knight and both four pawns. With little time on the clock it is very difficult to stay precise.

The 4-0 loss looks worse than the games actually played and this Hong Kong team is about to get to the next plateau and in matches like those of today, score better.

Here is the official FIDE reporting of this round.

Tomorrow against Taipei.