R4: Judit, Loek, and Vlad win

In the fourth round we see the two leaders Carlsen and Aronian facing each other, and Anand playing 1.d4. Surprising, until you realize whom he's playing. Two videos added

Because, as we've just learnt in the press room, Anand often tries 1.d4 when he's in trouble or when he plays Mickey. It's a bit too early to state the former, but the latter is definitely true today. And indeed, if we list all Anand-Adams games from the datbase, we see 1.d4 nine times. Apparently it has something to do with Adams' Queen's Indian.


Update 15:29h

The first result in group A is there: a draw in Radjabov-Mamedyarov. In a Gr?ɬºnfeld, Black sac'ed a pawn for good compensation and the resulting ending was dead even soon.

Gelfand and Polgar played about which we're not sure where to put it under, Catalan or English? More interesting is the position itself, and the question whether Black will be able to keep the pawn on d3. Kramnik has got another one of those queenless middlegames in which he can try and squeeze endlessly and he's pretty good at that.

Ivanchuk, just like Bareev in May in Elista, is trying it with the Caro-Kann against Leko. The line (4... Nd7 5. Ng5 Ngf6 6. Bd3 e6 7. N1f3 Bd6 8.Qe2 h6 9. Ne4 Nxe4 10. Qxe4 Qc7 11. O-O b6 12. Qg4 Kf8) is very topical at the moment (Wojtaszek held Anand to a draw in this year's Bundesliga) and the novelty is 17.dxc5, compared to Kotronias-Wojtaszek, Rilton Cup '07-'08! Carlsen avoided Aronian's Marshall and so not much has happened there yet while Van Wely-Topalov is simply original: a Benoni with Ng8-e7 - this will be an exciting game.

In the B group Cheparinov is doing a Kasparov imitation against Nepomniachtchi: sacrificing three (!) pawns from preparation, and hunting for the king. It's probably over already. Braun will be the lead for at least one more round since he crushed Van der Werf in a mere 22 moves.

Update 16:50h

Mamedyarov about his quick draw, but also about why he resigned against Carlsen in round 1:

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Update 19:37h

Judit Polgar has won her first game, with Black against Boris Gelfand. It appeared to be a very smooth victory but in reality it was quite unclear and in timetrouble White made a big mistake with 31.Bf3. More about this later, since we just filmed Judit's press conference. Leko regretted his 32.Rf5 - he wanted to finish the game in style but he had missed 34.Be3 Be4!. As it went, Black could miracoulusly keep everything together. Carlsen allowed an exchange sac that looked promising for Black but Aronian's 33...Rf5 was probably inaccurate and after that it was a draw. Adams was better for a long time against a thus far truly disappointing world champion, but it wasn't enough to win. At this moment Kramnik is trying to win a drawn ending that he's said to have won before in Wijk aan Zee, and Loek is again very close to winning. Topalov is fighting for his life and despite the extra exchange it's not easy at all.

In B Cheparinov's win was indeed as brutal as we predicted and Spoelman played quite well today but still, he will lose anyway, unfortunately. In C both Ruijgrok and Van der Werf could already resign while it was still theory - a piece of dubious preparation that's punished severely at this level.

Update 0:10h

At the end both Van Wey and Kramnik did succeed in winning their endings. Especially Loek received a warm applause by the audience in the playing hall, since he also had better positions in the two previous rounds, but couldn't win these. Besides, his opponent was no-one else than Topalov. Here's Loek's reaction right after the game:

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And indeed, Kramnik did it again, getting something out of nothing, squeezing water out of stone, or however you want to call it, but how this man keeps on linquidating to endings with a slight plus and turns it into a win against players such as Eljanov, this is really amazing.

And so Carlsen and Aronian are leading throughout the first rest day tomorrow, with 3 out of 4, the same number of points Bacrot, Smeets and Harikrishna have collected in B. In C only IM Braun has won all his games; top seed Caruana follows on half a point.

Grandmastergroup A L. van Wely - V. Topalov 1-0 B. Gelfand - J. Polgar 0-1 P. Leko - V. Ivanchuk ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? M. Carlsen - L. Aronian ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? V. Anand - M. Adams ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? V. Kramnik - P. Eljanov 1-0 T. Radjabov - S. Mamedyarov ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ?

Grandmastergroup B N. Short - H. Koneru ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? G. Sargissian - E. L'Ami ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Cheparinov - Nepomniachtchi 1-0 M. Krasenkow - J. Smeets ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? E. Bacrot - S. Movsesian ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? P. Harikrishna - W. Spoelman 1-0 Y. Hou - D. Stellwagen ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ?

Grandmastergroup C I. Krush - E. Grivas 0-1 F. Caruana - D. Reinderman ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? P. Carlsson - D. Ruijgrok 1-0 A. Braun - M. van der Werf 1-0 J. van der Wiel - Z. Peng ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? S. Li - P. Negi 0-1 A. Ushenina - F. Nijboer 0-1

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External links (do check Macauley's videos!):

• Tournament website
• Macauley's videos
• Live web commentary (Chessdom)
• Web commentary Chesspro (Russian)