It was a good day for the black pieces, as their users won four and drew three in the A-group. Of course, it helped that the players championing Black in this round included almost all the favorites.
First and foremost, as long as he's leading, there's Alexei Shirov, who kicked Sergei Tiviakov's 2.Nc3 + 3.Bb5 Anti-Sicilian to the curb in a hurry. White's position never made a very good impression, and 24...Bxg2+ heralded doom for the white king. Seven moves later it had gone from f1 to b4, and with mate imminent Tiviakov called it a day.
That gave Shirov a 3-0 score, but he's only half a point ahead of youngsters Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura. Carlsen had Black against Loek van Wely, and chose a dubious-looking sac against vW's Exchange QGD. (As I noted yesterday, very little of Carlsen's success can be attributed to his opening repertoire; the guy just outplays people from nothing.) Carlsen soon regained the pawn, then won a pawn and went on to win a double-rook ending. As for Nakamura, he played the Classical Sicilian against Nigel Short, and when the former mishandled the Boleslavsky line Black took over the initiative, won a pawn, and converted easily in a rook and bishop ending.
The fourth win came from Vassily Ivanchuk, whose victory over Jan Smeets has him in clear fourth at 2-1. This was a Najdorf Sicilian with strong similarities to the Classical Rauzer, and on this occasion Black's queenside play and bishop pair proved more important than White's kingside clamp and extra pawn. White failed to pay enough attention to Black's attacking possibilities, and after 27...a4 28.Na1 b4 it was too late, and Smeets got rolled.
The three draws were all pretty lame and featured the usual suspects: Leko with either color and Kramnik and Anand with Black. (This isn't to say that none of them ever plays for a win, only that they are relatively draw-friendly against their fellow elites under the given conditions.) Leko-Karjakin saw Gelfand's trendy pawn sac against the QID, but the ease with which Karjakin held suggests that it might soon say 2006-2010 on its tombstone. Caruana-Kramnik was - what else? - a Petroff, and Caruana didn't make the ex-champ break a sweat. Finally, there was Dominguez-Anand, and that was a long game - 77 moves. The number is a bit deceptive, however, as the game could have been agreed drawn on move 33. Dominguez had an extra pawn in a rook and bishop ending, but with all the pawns on the same side of the board and Black able to achieve an ideal defensive formation, together with the fact that swapping either the rooks or the bishops would keep the game a dead draw, this was just an exercise in going through the motions. It probably felt nice for Dominguez to "torture" the world champion without any possible danger, but unless Anand had a heart attack or died of boredom, there were no real winning chances either. (Those interested can see the games with Mark Crowther's brief comments here.)
Standings After Round 3:
1. Shirov 3
2-3. Carlsen, Nakamura 2½
4. Ivanchuk 2
5-8. Dominguez, Karjakin, Anand, Kramnik 1½
9-12. Tiviakov, Caruana, Leko, van Wely 1
13-14. Smeets, Short ½
Round 4 Pairings:
Anand - Nakamura
Carlsen - Short
Ivanchuk - van Wely
Shirov - Smeets
Kramnik - Tiviakov
Karjakin - Caruana
Dominguez - Leko
With the exception of Anand-Nakamura, it looks like a good opportunity for the rich to get richer.
In the B-Group, Giri was held to a draw, so Ni Hua caught him at 2.5/3 by beating Nyback - with Black, of course. The group's only other winner was Harikrishna, who surprisingly managed to win Q+B vs. Q (no pawns) - with Black - against Anna Muzychuk.
In the C-Group, Robson was also held to a draw and lost his perfect score. He was caught by Vocaturo, who demolished Van Kampen in 23 moves (with White!), and by Li Chao, who won quickly with Black against Plukkel. Other winners were Gupta, Swinkels and Lie.