Ivanchuk on 4/4

And he did it again: Vassily Ivanchuk is now on 4/4 in Sofia after he beat Cheparinov today. This way he extended his lead since Radjabov-Topalov and Bu Xiangzhi-Aronian both ended in a draw.

Cheparinov seems to be developing himself into a second Topalov by showing similar fighting spirit in almost every game. Today he chose the King's Indian and on his turn, Ivanchuk went for the old Nd3 and Bd2 line, very popular in the early eighties of the last century. Cheparinov was well prepared and so the players followed theory for 24 moves. It continued as a great King's Indian battle (this is a fan writing) and only 33...Nxg2? (often the crucial move in Black's attack) was wrong here. Quite surprisingly, 33...Nf3 is not good either because of 34.Nxf4 Nxe1 35.Qc8! but 33...Nhg6! 34.Bf2 Qb4 continues the fight. But we have to admit that one can easily miss Ivanchuk's beautiful move 37.Bh4!!.

Unfortunately that was about it for today. Radjabov chose a not very dangerous Catalan line against Topalov, making the Bulgarian's life easy, and Bu Xiangzhi's quiet set-up wasn't enough to scare Aronian either.



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Pairings round 5:

Topalov, V - Xiangzhi, Bu Aronian, L - Ivanchuk, V Cheparinov, I - Radjabov, T Videos by Europe-Echecs:






Radjabov - Topalov in the aquarium

Vassily Ivanchuk - on his way to finally another super tournament victory?

Levon Aronian - can he stop Ivanchuk tomorrow?

Bu Xiangzhi - still thinking about his 7th move of yesterday?


Links:

• Tournament website
• Games in PGN