Shirov Goes 4/4 At Corus

Alexei Shirov extended his lead at the 2010 Corus tournament by recording his fourth win in as many games to reach 4 points out of 4.

Shirov's victim today was Jan Smeets, who blundered with 33. Rcd8?? and now becomes the cellar-dweller with just a half point to show for his exertions so far.

The only other decisive game in the 'A' Group today saw Vassily Ivanchuk (pictured) completely demolish Loek Van Wely in a sharp Najdorf.  Chucky moves up to join the young'uns Carlsen and Nakamura on 3/4.

Nigel Short held Magnus Carlsen to a draw and Hikaru Nakamura successfully ventured the Dutch defence against world champion Vishy Anand to split the points.  Vladimir Kramnik seems to be firing blanks at Corus so far, and drew again today against Sergei Tiviakov to remain on a level score.

Meanwhile in the 'B' Group Pental Harikrishna continued his recovery from an opening round loss to move to a plus score by beating top seed Arkadij Naiditsch.  Anish Giri and Ni Hua remain joint leaders.

The 'C' Group had a truly vicious round, with only one game ending in a draw.  Ray Robson and Li Chao were among the winners, so extending their joint lead at the top.

***At the time of writing, Dmitri Reinderman and David Howell are still slugging it out in Group B {UPDATE - Howell won.  See game below}.  Tomorrow is the first rest day, so round 5 will be on Thursday.

The results in round 4:

The standings after four rounds:

Selected games are below.  The official site has all the games available.