Alekhine Memorial Round 4

Lev Aronian joined the leaders at the Alekhine Memorial thanks to a victory against Peter Svidler in round four.

Svidler played his favourite Gruenfeld defence, and an interesting battle ensued until Svidler slipped up with 32...Rf7 and the game came to an abrupt end just 4 moves later.

The Armenian's win made some amends for his very costly 11th round loss to Svidler at the recent Candidates Tournament in London.

All the other games were drawn in round four, but not without plenty of fight, especially the 72-move struggle between Laurent Fressinet and Michael Adams.

Our on-site reporter, Jason Stoneking spoke with the players after the round...

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Lev Aronian won the only decisive game of the day (all photos by Leslie McAllister)

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Peter Svidler's loss leaves him in last place

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The lowest seeded player Laurent Fressinet is still undefeated

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Michael Adams was lucky to escape with a draw

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Joint leader Vachier-Lagrave took on the world champion

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Vishy Anand did enough to hold for a draw

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Ding Liren drew with Vladimir Kramnik

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Vladimir Kramnik is only on a level score after 4 rounds

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Nikita Vitiugov played a nice game

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Boris Gelfand had to play accurately for a draw

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The Alekhine Memorial Standings after 4 rounds

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The Alekhine Memorial takes place from 21 April - 1 May. The official site can be found here, with live game analysis here and video commentary here (with archive).

The tournament is a 10-player single round robin competition, with the first half held in the Louvre in Paris and the second half in the Russian State Museum in St. Petersburg.

The time control is 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 minutes for the next 20 moves, then 15 minutes to a finish with a 30 second increment from the start.  No draw offers are allowed until after 40 moves have been played.  The prize fund is €100,000 with €30,000 for first place.

All rounds start at 14:00 local time (12:00 UTC when in Paris, 10:00 UTC when in St. Petersburg), except the last round which is 1 hour earlier.

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The schedule of events

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Games from the official website coverage. Photos by Leslie McAllister.

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