Norway Chess, Round 4: Carlsen Beats Caruana, Leapfrogs Into First
Thursday, October 8, 2020 at 11:32PM
Dennis Monokroussos in 2020 Norway Chess, Magnus Carlsen

This Magnus Carlsen guy's pretty good, it seems.

He has won just about everything he has entered this year, and defeating Fabiano Caruana in the classical game was a meaningful step in the direction of adding this year's Norway Chess tournament to the collection. It was a very clean victory, too, outplaying his opponent a bit at a time to collect the full point.

Had Levon Aronian won his classical game with Alireza Firouzja, he would have found himself in clear first. He only managed a draw, however, and then squandered a seriously winning position and eventually lost the Armageddon battle. The result of these two games is that Carlsen now leads with 9/12, Aronian has 8, and Firouzja and Caruana are tied for 3rd-4th with 7 points apiece.

In the battle of the goose eggs, Aryan Tari and Jan-Krzysztof drew their classical game, putting them both on the scoreboard. (Hopefully that gives them both a boost of confidence for their next rounds.) Someone had to get an extra half point in the Armageddon blitz, and while Duda was the first to acquire a winning advantage, it was Tari who managed to finish the job and win.

The players have Friday off, which may give me a chance to catch up on the games, and on Saturday they resume with round 5, with these pairings:

Article originally appeared on The Chess Mind (http://www.thechessmind.net/).
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