Wijk aan Zee, Round 4: Shirov Goes Four for Four

Alexei Shirov, once the darling of the chess public but now overshadowed by the three active world champions (past and present) and youngsters like Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura, is reminding us once again of his greatness as a player here and now. He won his fourth game today in "fire on board" style, using a questionable piece sac to confuse Jan Smeets as the time control approached. It worked: Smeets got into serious time trouble and collapsed, and Shirov's perfect run went to four games.

Neither Carlsen nor Nakamura managed to win their games, though Carlsen probably could have with a little more accuracy. Carlsen was outplaying Nigel Short with White but erred badly on his 28th move, and after that Short held with ease. Nakamura had a tougher pairing and color: Black against Anand. Even so, he held very comfortably with the Dutch (maybe Topalov should take it up?!), and so he, like Carlsen, remained in second, albeit a full point behind Shirov.

The youngsters were caught there by the oldster, Vassily Ivanchuk, who blew Loek van Wely off the board with a 6.Bg5 Najdorf. Van Wely's complete lack of success with the Najdorf in this event (against Nakamura and now Ivanchuk) reminds me of his Najdorfs about 8-10 years ago against players like Kasparov, Shirov, and Morozevich - he got blown away back then, too. I like that he sticks to his principles, and his losses are almost always very entertaining. For his own sake, though, he might want to be a bit more pragmatic against the super-elites.

Dominguez-Leko and Karjakin-Caruana were model draws in the Ruy, but in very different ways. The first was a fascinating Marshall handled brilliantly by Leko, while the second was an Exchange Variation where Caruana's active defense stopped Karjakin from getting anything with his superior pawn majority.

Finally, Kramnik-Tiviakov was a very poor game for ex-champ, who really doesn't seem to have found his form in this tournament. He didn't get anything from the opening, and Tiviakov was more successful in breaking through the center than Kramnik was on the kingside. Kramnik was in trouble, but in a winning position two errors in four moves let Kramnik eke out a draw.

Standings After Round 4:

1. Shirov 4

2-4. Nakamura, Ivanchuk, Carlsen 3

5-8. Anand, Dominguez, Karjakin, Kramnik 2

9-11. Tiviakov, Caruana, Leko 1½

12-13. Short, van Wely 1

14. Smeets ½

Round 5 Pairings (on Thursday):

Leko - Anand

Caruana - Dominguez

Tiviakov - Karjakin

Smeets - Kramnik

van Wely - Shirov

Short - Ivanchuk

Nakamura - Carlsen

The last three boards ought to be a lot of fun. Van Wely and Shirov have had some spectacular battles (though the most entertaining ones have come when Shirov had White), Short looks like an excellent possible victim for the streaky Ivanchuk, and the Nakamura-Carlsen rivalry may well be the major war of the next decade.

In Group B, Ni Hua and Anish Giri drew with each other and remained tied for the lead with 3/4, half a point ahead of Harikrishna, L'Ami and Howell, all of whom won in round 4. (The other winner du jour was Nyback, who is the only player in the B group without a draw.)

In Group C, Robson and Li Chao both won their games and lead with 3½/4, a full point ahead of five others.

The tournament site is here, while the round 4 games, with my comments, are here (Group A only!).

Comments

[Sundar]

I was looking for "?" and/or "??"s in Ivanchuk,V - Van Wely,L.

Didn't think a 2600+ player can lose in 26 moves without making any obvious mistakes.

[Dennis Monokroussos]

You learn something new every day. In fact, you might have known it even before you read my post, because if the mistakes were obvious you wouldn't have needed my punctuation to find them.

Of course, van Wely did something wrong in the game, and I suggested that it might have been the natural 11...Rb8. But it's not an obvious mistake by any stretch, and the punishment is not immediate. Sometimes in a very sharp line, surviving is a matter of a single tempo, but the proof can take quite a while.

[Jeffrey "notyetagm" Hall]

5//5 for Shirov now.

Yikes! Only Short stands between Shirov and a 6/6 start.

[estirodri]

"only"? He is a pretty darn good player, you know?