British Championships Day 3

Only 2 players are on 3/3 - GMs (and 1st and 3rd seeds) Jones and Gordon, who will play each other in round 4. The accelerated pairings are producing some interesting early encounters. 2nd seed David Howell is half a point behind the leaders, having defeated IM Hawkins. Howell will have Black against Gormally tomorrow.

James Holland won a nice tactical game against FM Dave Eggleston, and is also on 2.5/3 but avoids meeting another Grandmaster: instead he is paired with FM Robert Shaw. Matthew Turner beat James Adair by first picking up a pawn, then another, and converting to a rook ending. Chess can be made to look very simple by good players.Turner now faces Marcus Osborne, an untitled player I've not come across previously.

Amy Hoare lost quickly to IM Jack Rudd (who apparently used only 11 minutes in total). A dubious (time-wasting) excursion with a knight gave Rudd an advantage based on a pin. White tried to break this but ended up with her queen trapped in the middle of the board.

One of the last games to finish was Foo vs Houska, with the IM (and highest rated female player in the tournament) unable to force through a win in a long ending that had draw written all over it. Somehow it got to 130 moves before the point was split. I guess that's called tenacity.

Remember that the games are being broadcast live, with commentary from IM Andrew Martin starting at roughly 3 PM (14:00 GMT).

P.S.We appear to have some genuine press coverage (finally): http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news/2012/07/25/99th-british-chess-championships-comes-to-north-shields-61634-31466213/