Live reporting: round 5

Laste update: 18.12 CET

And we have started. The fifth round immediately sees some interesting opening positions. Especially Shirov-Van Wely: they follow a topical line of the Najdorf - let's hope it'll go better for KingLoek than against Topalov, but I remember this line being theoretically better for White... We'll look it up and get back to this soon. Radja played another King's Indian (which means more work for Golubev!) and Navara reacted surprisingly with some Bg5 line. Karjakin-Motylev is a Advance Caro-Kann (we haven't seen that one for a while!), Tivi does something very quiet and very unknown against Topa's Berlin Defence of the Ruy Lopez, Pono-Kramnik is a quiet Semi-Slav, Anand this time declines Svidler's Marshall (although tutor Jan van Kalken has said that 'you can always take the first pawn') and Aronian immediately sac'ed a pawn against Carlsen (a Queen's Indian).

Update 14.50 CET: by the way, Topalov and Danailov are wearing a band today in the colours of the Bulgarian flag and with the text 'You are not alone': they co-operate with the international campaign put up by the Bulgarian media for the five Bulgarian nurses who have been imprisoned for years and now face the death penalty. And about the theoretical status of Shirov-Van Wely: the latest news in this line was 21...d5!?, played in Harikrishna-Karjakin, Foros 2006. Loek plays the slightly older move 21...Ne5, which Anand used to beat Karjakin, last year in Wijk aan Zee, but Loek plays the improvement 22...Ra4! instead of Vishy's 22...Ra5, when Karjakin could have gained the advantage with 23.Qb4!. After 22...Ra4 still known are the moves 23. Qg2 (from Al Modiahki-Ftacnik, Turin OL 2006) and 23. h5 (Shabalov-De Firmian, Ledyards 2006), but Shirov indeed seems not well prepared, just like in his game against Topalov, because he's now used more than an hour on the clock already.

Update 15.56 CET: while there's not only storm outside but thunder too, inside already two games are over. Only one was peaceful: again a quick draw by Kramnik, who we suddenly noticed next to us, with his coat on and using the internet. This way you don't win tournaments, Mr. World Champion, or are you preparing a Topalovian final sprint? The journalists were shocked when Anand had suddenly won and quickly took their notebooks and cameras. Unfortunately he and his wife already had their coat on as well: no post-mortem this time. What happened?

Anand-Svidler Corus 2007

Black played 18...Ne7? here; Anand explained that Svidler thought that after 19. Nxh6+ Qxh6 20. Qxd7 Red8 21. Qxc7 he could go 21...Rc8 'when 22.Qxe5 was forced and 22...Rxd2 gives good play'. Nopes, Bb7 is hanging. A surprising piece of chess blindness by Svidler.

Update 17.01 CET: again Karjakin isn't really showing a will to fight. Against Topalov he offered a draw in a good position and today his approach of the Caro-Kann was too timid to give Motylev any trouble. Carlsen got another half point again, but him we cannot really blame and now he's getting back into the tournament. And at this very moment, KingLoek has won. His second Chuchelov told me that the game that Merijn mentioned in the comments (Rohit-Karavade) was analysed thoroughly by him because the guy playing White in that game is one of his pupils! It clearly helped a lot and now Van Wely got his first victory.

Update 18.05 CET: RADJABOV WON AGAIN. Nothing was left of the solid Navara of round 4; at first sight it seems the Czech was outplayed completely by the leader of the tournament. Especially 28.Rb6 was bad; later tonight we will publish an analysis of this game. The only game left is Tiviakov-Topalov, a knight vs. bishop ending that doesn't seem to lead anywhere else than a draw.

Update 18.12 CET: ...and it did: Tivi-Topa also a draw. Probably the quickest round so far. Stay tuned for the press conference of Loek van Wely later tonight!