The day 3 of the semi-finals Hello dear chessfriends! Unfortunately ALL Saint-Petersburg Grandmasters are verrry busy today, so today it's me Ilya Manakov (webmaster and administrator of the site ) who will transmit and who will try to annotate the games of the 3rd semi-finals day. Of course it's not the same, but but at least you can watch the games from Dortmund. And so, today's pairs: Bareev - Topalov 1-0 Shirov - Leko 0-1 What do we expect from the today's games? Of course we expect the struggle and the struggle of the high voltage! So the sports situation allows to hope for this. Surely Shirov will rush into the battle as it's his last game in the life Though it can be really his last game not in the life but in the tournament - taking into account the results of the first two games. In principle Bareev has to try to use his last "white" game as much as possible too, because, as they like to tell, the psychological initiative is on his side. Though there are the reasons against it too: the 1st - the results of White in these semi-finals (3 defeats and 1 draw) and the 2nd - whether will the contenders be able to keep the voltage after such nervous struggle in the first two games? As we expected the principal fighting has begun in the both games from the first moves. Bareev - Topalov 1-0 Was played the actual now variant 9.b4 of King's indian. Earlier White prefered 9.Nd2 or 9.Ne1. Here White doesn't waste the time for the reinforcement of his center and starts the attack on the Q-side. Black rather logically started to undermine the white pawn's center by f7-f5 and c7-c6, another plan here is connected with the clearing up the situation on the Q-side by the move a7-a5. After f5 at black position appeared the weakness - e6-square and White is trying to use it immediately by the manoeuvre Ng5, of course all of this met in the practice a lot of times. Usually the fierce fighting for the center happens here. After the exchange on the e6-square White has an andantage of two Bishops, but the e6-pawn is rather weak and the question whether White be able to use it for the development of his initiative is the one of the keys questions in this variant. Usually Black can to build the pawn center and take the e6-pawn, but at the same time, because of the appeared open lines, White can to exert the unpleasant pressure on the black position, combining this with the play on the Q-side where he has an advantage. Black could to build the pawn center, but what to do now? As you see the further advance of the central pawn leads to the opening of the new diagonals and it's in the White's favour because he has the two Bishops, therefore Black just can to defence the center by the pieces. After 23.Ba3 seems the position of Black can crash down soon. Black has taken the e6-pawn at last, using that in some variants he has the move Nd4 (because the white Bishop doesn't control this square after 23.Ba3), but now the Q-side is defenceless, it's clear the crysis came in this game. Indeed followed the concrete play with a lot of the mutual threats, what we expected in this game so much! Both contenders are in the zeitnot and because of that the struggle is more fiercefull! The contenders have to calculate a huge number of the variants before the every move. What a struggle! The contenders came through the zeitnot and who missed more in this game only the further detailed analysis will show. As it often happenes the prosaic Rook ending with an extra pawn at White, arose after the hot battle. The hopes of White are connected with the passed pawn "a", at the same time Black has to look for the counter-play on K-side. 48.Rd3 - White put his Rook behind the passed pawn - as it well known it's the best place for the Rook in such ending, now Bareev has the serious chances to win. Bareev won and took the leadership in this pair! Shirov - Leko 0-1 Here Shirov avoided the main variants of the Sicilian, though what to consider the main variant here? Because many players prefer the very variant 3.Bb5 against 2...Nc6 and as the practice shows such method is very acceptable, in any case the hot battle expect us! Leko chose 3...g6, an alternative is e6 with following Ng-e7. Taking on the c6, Shirov chose the plan typical for himself - to castle to the Q-side and to move all the pieces closer to the black King, the target is clear - to mate! Leko chose the plan connected with the quick mobilisation of the K-side. Another scheme here is f6,Nh6-f7,e5 - where Black doesn't hurry with the castling and at first he prefers to reinforce the position in the center and to clear up the purposes of White. And now when the contenders castled in the different sides the sharp fighting has begun - who is faster! The White's chances look more preferable because the position of his King is better. In the pawn's cover of the black King after the exchange of the dark-colored Bishops the weakness of the Dark squares is obvious. But it's not so easily to use this weakness because it's difficult to use his pawn for attack, and only by the pieces seems it's impossible to mate the black King. The move 17.Nd2 looks strange, but in case of the natural 17.Nf5 Bf5 18.gf is the very unpleasant 18...b3, and in case of 17.Nh4 is the composed 17...Kh8. At all looks Black has a real counter-play on the Q-side. Why didn't White play 18.b3? Then could be this variant 18...Qd4 19.Nc4 h6 20.Qe3 Qa1 21. Kd2 Qc3 and here White has to play 22.Ke2 or agree for a draw by perpetual check. But now after 18.ba Black has the real chances to start the attack by first. Maybe it looks strange, but Black opened the position of the contender's King by first. Though it satisfies the principles of the leading of the attack on the King - at first the pawns move ahead to open the files and after that the pieces penetrate into the contender's camp using these open files. Yeah Black leads the attack classically.The move 25.Kc1 shows that White has a rather hopeless position. After following 25...c4 it's unclear how to resist in such position. 29.Nf5 - the sign of despair, but how can he defence from the threat Ne3? Yeah this match is over, Leko is in the final!