The Daily Update: Five Draws in Moscow; A Day off in Tirana
All five games were drawn at the Tal Memorial, but they were all hard-fought and at least three of the games could easily have had a different result.
Co-leader Aronian established a bind in the opening after an inaccuracy by the world champion. Anand surrendered a pawn to break the bind, but Aronian maintained good winning chances deep into the ending. Perhaps he should have played 46.Bf3, keeping Black's knight restrained, though whether that would have been enough to win isn't clear. After 46.a5? Ng4 Black had equalized, with Anand's initiative at least as dangerous as anything White had going.
Nepomniachtchi started the round tied for first, and he was very fortunate to end it that way. Nakamura was clearly winning before the first time control, and still winning - though less transparently - afterwards as well. Once it came down to the rook and two pawns vs. rook and pawn ending, however, it was simply drawn. Nepomniachtchi needed to know the Vancura method, and he did.
The other two co-leaders, Carlsen and Karjakin, were paired with each other. Carlsen was pressing hard, but an inaccuracy before the time control allowed Karjakin to survive with extremely accurate play. Incidentally, while I didn't have the chance to look at it too closely, the pure knight ending from the last 15 moves of the game looked incredibly complicated. Anyone looking for an analysis exercise could do worse than trying to puzzle out that ending.
In games not featuring leaders, Kramnik had very good winning chances against Ivanchuk, but didn't prevail, while Svidler-Gelfand was a clean draw.
After four rounds then, Aronian, Carlsen, Nepomniachtchi and Karjakin lead with 2.5/4. Anand, Ivanchuk and Svidler have 2; Kramnik and Nakamura have 1.5, and Gelfand brings up the rear with 1. The tournament site is given above, but note also their video page, which includes (replayable) live coverage that includes the players' press conferences.
As for the women's world championship, it was a rest day. Hou Yifan leads Humpy Koneru 2.5-1.5 after four of ten rounds.
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