Astrakhan Grand Prix Reaches Round 4

With the chess world still recovering from the excitement of the World Championship, the start of the final Grand Prix event has been somewhat overshadowed.

As it turns out, the opening rounds of the tournament have not seen many decisive games, so we haven't missed much yet.  All the decisive games from rounds 1 to 4 are given below.

The final standings of the Grand Prix series will reveal another player to qualify through to the next world championship cycle to challenge Anand. Those already qualified by various means are Veselin Topalov, Gata Kamsky, Boris Gelfand, Lev Aronian, Magnus Carlsen and Vladimir Kramnik.

Vassily Ivanchuk's (pictured) bid to join them started badly with two losses and two draws.

The current standings are: