The relative standings in the 2017 edition of the Dortmund Sparkassen tournament remain the same: Mathias Bluebaum and Radoslaw Wojtaszek lead with +1 scores, Vladimir Kramnik and Wang Yue trail at -1, and the other four players are on 50%. But the leaders could have been on +2 instead, especially Bluebaum.
The games Maxime Vachier-Lagrave vs. Wang Yue and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu vs. Kramnik ended relatively quickly and uneventfully, but Wojtaszek's game with Vladimir Fedoseev and Bluebaum's game with Dmitry Andreikin each went over 100 moves. In the former case the length was somewhat inflated, as the last 40 moves consisted of Wojtaszek hoping for a quasi-miracle in rook and knight vs. rook, but it wasn't coming. However, he did have a winning chance. While White - Wojtaszek - enjoyed the lion's share of the winning chances, both sides were hoping for the full point in a complicated ending. The beautiful 43...Re5!! would have forced a draw for Fedoseev; instead, his 43...Kf4? gave White a chance to win with 44.e7. That was an easier find than Fedoseev's move, and he did spot it, but missed something subtler a few moves into the variation.
Bluebaum, by contrast, was winning against Andreikin for a very long time. This game bore some similarities to Wojtaszek-Fedoseev, in that there was a period where both players were simultaneously fighting for the win. When the smoke cleared, after mutual mistakes, Bluebaum had two rooks against Andreikin's rook, g- and h-pawn. It was a win, but not an easy one, even after Bluebaum won the h-pawn. Black's g-pawn was far advanced and well-protected, and the winning procedure was anything but intuitive, especially after many hours of play and not much time remaining on the clock. Andreikin was safe, according to the tablebases, once he played 87...g2, but he still needed to remain alert to the end. This culminated in a very nice - and forced - stalemate trick at the end: 120...Rf2+!! White took the rook and they called it a day, as after 121.Kxf2 g1Q+ 122.Rxg1 it's stalemate.
Today is a rest day, and on Thursday the pairings are Wang Yue - Bluebaum, Kramnik - Vachier-Lagrave, Fedoseev - Nisipeanu, and Andreikin - Wojtaszek.