London Chess Classic, Round 4: Four Draws and a Nakamura Win
Decisive results aren't exactly falling like leaves in autumn, but it's not for want of effort at the London Chess Classic. Magnus Carlsen tried until move 78 to beat Michael Adams, and Veselin Topalov went to move 83 trying to defeat Fabiano Caruana, but the defense held in both cases. Alexander Grischuk and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave "only" went to move 43, but their game was a thriller, with both sides playing very accurately in a game that was complicated from start to finish. For Grischuk it was especially impressive, as he had to wend his way through a difficult position in severe time trouble. The fourth draw was fairly short, between Anish Giri and Levon Aronian, but it had its interesting moments early on before it flickered out.
The fifth game had a winner - the third win in the tournament. Hikaru Nakamura came into today's game with Viswanathan Anand with a 5-1 score against him in decisive classical games, and now it's 6-1. Nakamura steered the game towards a Catalan sideline, which Anand met with an interesting pawn sacrifice. Black's compensation was at least nearly sufficient, but that and the general complexion of the game changed after Anand's 24...Qa4?!, sidelining the queen. Anand hoped that the queen would prove active here; unfortunately for him, it was anything but. The queen was stuck, and after 30...g6 31.h5 g5 Black's weakened kingside allowed Nakamura to transfer his knight from a3 to f5, resulting in a speedy win. (The games can be replayed here, with my notes to several of them.)
Nakamura thus joins Giri and Vachier-Lagrave in the lead with a +1 score. Topalov lost to the latter two and remains alone in the cellar, half a point behind Anand and a full point behind the four players who are on 50%. Here are the pairings for round 5:
- Vachier-Lagrave (2.5) - Giri (2.5)
- Caruana (2) - Grischuk (2)
- Anand (1.5) - Topalov (1)
- Adams (2) - Nakamura (2.5)
- Aronian (2) - Carlsen (2)
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