Caruana Wins In Tal Memorial Round 4

The fierce determination of the players was unchanged in round 4 of the Tal Memorial, but the only decisive game saw Fabiano Caruana defeat an overambitious Evgeny Tomashevsky.

The game of the day was unquestionably the fantastic effort from Magnus Carlsen who channeled the spirit of Tal with a tremendously risky and unclear game against Alexander Grischuk.  After Carlsen's exchange sacrifice both players felt they had the better position until the excitement ended with a repetition just before the first time control.

The clash of the leaders Alexander Morozevich and Teimour Radjabov was a genuine encounter but failed to spark into a great game, while Vladimir Kramnik tested Lev Aronian's mettle with some excellent preparation which the Armenian was able to answer.

Luke McShane was once again the last to finish.  He had achieved a great position against Hikaru Nakamura but only until terrible time trouble left him defending a rook ending a pawn down.  Nakamura stalemated his tough opponent after 79 moves.

Fabiano Caruana was the only winner in round 4

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A great game from the world's #1 player, but still no win for Carlsen

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Still joint leader, Alexander Morozevich

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Vladimir Kramnik made Lev Aronian work hard for a draw

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Time trouble addict Luke McShane blew a promising position but held for a draw

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The standings after 4 rounds:

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The pairings for round 5 are:

Photos by Eteri Kublashvili.  Games via TWIC.

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The 2012 Tal Memorial super-tournament takes place in Moscow, Russia from 7-19 June.

The format is a 10-player single round robin, with rounds starting at 15:00 local time (11:00 UTC), except for the last round which starts two hours earlier.

The total prize fund is €100,000 with €30,000 going to the winner.  The time control in operation is 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 minutes for 20 moves, and finally 15 minutes to a finish with an increment of 30 seconds from the start. No draw offers will be allowed before move 40.

The tournament schedule:

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There will be live video coverage on chess.com/tv (scroll down for the schedule) as well as at the official website.  The video coverage at the official website is available for replay here (Russian commentary) and also here (English commentary).

Last year Magnus Carlsen won the tournament, narrowly beating Lev Aronian on superior tie-breaks after both finished with a score of 5½/9. 

In case of a tie in this year's event, the tie-breaks are:

1. Number of games played with black
2. Number of wins
3. Result of direct encounter
4. Koya system
5. Sonneborn-Berger