Chess: Carlsen recovers in Stavanger while seven-year-old eyes Expert record

Magnus Carlsen recovered from a slow start to score a third round win following two lacklustre draws this week at Stavanger, the Norway tournament which the world champion has won on its last three renewals.

The world No 1’s games are screened live and free daily from 4pm BST to a global internet audience, with grandmaster commentaries and a board sidebar which enables non-chess players to see who is winning. Draws are immediately replayed as Armageddons, where White has 10 minutes to Black’s seven but a halved result on the board counts as a black win for the score table.

Related: Chess: Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa reaches final at 2am on day of his exams

That rule cost Carlsen in his second round Armageddon against Wesley So, as the US grandmaster scored with a queen-rook mating attack. Carlsen recovered well in Thursday’s third round when the No 1 exploited an extra pawn to defeat the Azerbaijani, Teimour Radjabov. Earlier, Carlsen had opted for another bizarre first move in the pre-tournament blitz, following his use of 1 f2-f3 and 1 h2-h4 in the previous week’s online Chessable Masters. This time it was 1 a2-a4, known as the Meadow Hay because its originator in the 1870s, Preston Ware, was a farmer who also played, as Black, the Corn Stalk Defence 1…a7-a5.

Such eccentricities fit uneasily with the world crown, and Carlsen is now under some pressure to find his true form quickly. He needs to win Stavanger convincingly to avoid falling behind in his quest to achieve a 2900 rating, a chess Everest that he approached in 2014 when he reached 2889.

Vishy Anand, India’s five-time world champion, ishas been in superb form of late and belied his 52 years by taking the early Stavanger lead with wins in both his classical