Tal Memorial, Round 4: Giri Leads
The fourth round of the Tal Memorial was very exciting, with three decisive games out of five - and it could have been five out of five. Anish Giri defeated Peter Svidler with Black to take sole possession of first with 3.5/4. He is half a point ahead of Ian Nepomniachtchi, who drew with Levon Aronian. For the most part this was a correct result, except for an Aronian blunder on move 15 that went unpunished.
The other draw was a marathon battle between Evgeny Tomashevsky and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Early on Mamedyarov had an edge, but later Tomashevsky wasn't just better; he was winning. He missed his chances, and in the end Mamedyarov scraped out a draw.
Boris Gelfand did his best to try to eke out a draw against Li Chao, hoping to create a fortress against Li's superior forces, but he couldn't do it. Finally, Vladimir Kramnik bounced back from his loss in round 3 with a good win over his longtime rival Viswanathan Anand. He was pressing throughout the first time control, but without ever being too close to a win. In the second time control, however, his pressure bore fruit. Kramnik did make one subsequent mistake, but Anand failed to seize his chance and lost several moves later.
The games, with comments, are here, and here are the round 5 pairings:
- Aronian (2) - Kramnik (2)
- Giri (3.5) - Nepomniachtchi (3)
- Mamedyarov (2) - Svidler (1.5)
- Li Chao (2.5) - Tomashevsky (1)
- Anand (2) - Gelfand (.5)
Reader Comments (1)
Thanks as always for all the material you provide, including annotated games. Not really criticism but rather surprise that Tomashevsky-Mamedyarov has just one summary sentence in the game viewer - given the rather definite "Tomashevsky wasn't just better; he was winning" in the blog entry. When/where did Tomashevsky miss a forced win, or at least a way to make obvious further progress?
[DM: There wasn't a "mathematical" forced win, but I'd say he was winning from the end of the first time control until 47.Kf3? Allowing Black to swap his knight for White's dark-squared bishop gave away the win. Here are a couple of lines to steer you in the right direction:
(1) 44.Ne3 c3 45.Ke2 Nb5 46.Nc2 Ke7 47.Bc4 Rb2 48.Kd3 Rb1 49.Bxb5 Rxb5 50.Bxc3. White has surrendered the bishop pair here too, but (a) hasn't lost his h-pawn, and (b) won't have to worry about any bishop and wrong rook-pawn endings.
(2) 47.Kd1! Nc8 (47...Rxg2? 48.e5 Rxh2 49.exd6 Rb2 50.Bc6+-) 48.Ne3 Rb1+ 49.Ke2 Rb2+ 50.Kf1 Rxh2 51.Bb4+ Ke8 52.Bc6+ Kf7 53.Nxc4+-. As in the game White has swapped his h-pawn for Black's c-pawn, but without surrendering the two bishops. It seems to me that White should be winning here.]