A disastrous opening for Erdogmus left Rapport with an advantage that soon snowballed into a winning position early in the middlegame.
Erdogmus did show a lot of resilience to hang in there, eventually finding himself in an theoretically drawn rook and pawn endgame.
But it was still a 2-pawn deficit, making it incredibly difficult to hold the balance in practice. And all it took was a couple of slight mistakes from the 14-year old for Rapport to be able to begin to squeeze his advantage and eventually bring home the full point.
Erdogmus in a must win with Black situation in the next rapid game, coming up shortly.
We could see a resignation quite soon from Erdogmus, as Rapport's pieces are too active while still keeping a two-pawn advantage.
Now, everything should win. Moving the king in for example, followed by a check along Rapport's seventh (Erdogmus' second) rank is clean.
Rapport finds it, and is now back to having a winning position. But it's still extremely difficult for him to avoid making a mistake and converting from here in any sort of clean fashion.
The only winning move is to push the pawn.
Rapport immediately 'blunders back', returning to an equal position. Expect more see-sawing over the coming moves.
This move brings the game to a losing position, but nearly impossible for a human to understand how to play such a position precisely in such a complex endgame with only seconds on the clock.
Incredibly, Erdogmus finds the perfect sequence. This was one of only two moves that are objectively equalizing. But of course, there's still a lot of work for him to do and chances to go wrong, given that currently he is two pawns down!
Crunch time for Erdogmus. He must trade the knight off if he wants to hang onto a drawn position.
The point! The knight is anchored to the defense of the rook, which means that Erdogmus is going to be able to force a pure rook and pawn ending that should be drawn.
Erdogmus seems to have wriggled out of trouble! Now the pawn is under a tonne of pressure. With best play, he might be able to hold a draw after all.
Erdogmus can go chasing after the seventh rank pawn, but in fact his best plan (and only way to hold the balance) is to target Rapport's weak fifth rank pawn instead...
Danger zone here for Erdogmus, as Rapport seeks to bring his knight into the central outpost.
Erdogmus is anticipating a possible knight jump and trying to stop that, while perhaps also looking for a pawn push to try to break down Rapport's structure.
Erdogmus continues to be in huge trouble, with Rapport's pieces ideally placed. There's no easy way for Erdogmus to break this bind of sorts, and he also has to be careful about an attack against his kingside!
Rapport immediately pressures the knight. The pawn is pinned, so Erdogmus must be fast to react.
Erdogmus under big pressure here, and it's not clear how he's going to avoid losing a pawn once Rapport steps his bishop out!
Erdogmus pushes forward, in order to solve the issue of his knight. But now after pawn takes pawn, Rapport is going to have a healthier pawn structure!
Rapport is really seizing control of this one, gripping a lot of space in the center and shutting out Erdogmus's bishop. He also has to be careful about his advanced knight, which lacks retreat squares!
Erdogmus with a little queenside pressure, though his knight feels vulnerable to attack by the bishop.
Rapport showing his ambition, aiming to target the knight and possibly break up Erdogmus queenside pawn chain.
Erdogmus is spending a little too much time maneuvering his knights around, and this has allowed Rapport enough time to consolidate his development and equalize.
Rapport uses tactics, in order to free up the scope of his light-squared bishop.
A bit of a mysterious choice of move, with one idea being to support a bishop trade in the future along the diagonal?
Erdogmus has ultimately settled on a positional approach, getting the queens off the board and looking to try to target either the bishop or the generally weak dark squares on Rapport's queenside.
Feels like Rapport can be pretty happy with what he's gotten out of the opening here. As long as he gets the chance to bring his bishop out and castle without anything too bad happening to his king before that, he should be very close to equal.
Looking to build up a strong center.
Pretty unorthodox play from Rapport, in keeping with his style. Is he looking to launch the pawn forward and set up some attacking chances?!
Too late now for Erdogmus to damage the structure, as the knight covers its colleague.
Rapport is happy to let Erdogmus double his pawns if he wishes, since doing so will leave him with the bishop pair.
An interesting choice from Erdogmus, going for a fairly positional variation against Rapport's Sicilian Defense.
Round 3 tiebreaks!
Our featured match-up will be the 14-year old Turkish superstar, as he prepares to do battle against the mercurial Hungarian grandmaster, Richard Rapport.
It's a testament to the Turkish teenager's incredible strength that he has been able to take the match to the tiebreak day, but he still has a mountain to climb if he wants to be the next player to knock out another member of the "2700 club".
Indeed, sporting a rating of 2744 and a world ranking of number 12, it is certain that Richard will be the favorite coming into this one.
But, with a format of just two games of 15+10 to potentially decide it, it's certainly either player's for the taking.
If still tied after the first two games, we'll see another two games, this time of 10+10. If still tied, then we'll drop down to 2 games of blitz (at 5+3). And if needed, it'll be 2 final games of blitz at 3+2. Sudden death, or armageddon, will decide matters in the unlikely event that there is still a deadlock after all rapid & blitz games have been played.
This is our only featured match-up for now, but we'll be switching coverage to another ongoing match in the event that this one finishes early. Good luck to the players!