Three draws in fourth round Kings' Tournament

All three games in the fourth round of the Kings' Tournament in Medias, Romania ended peacefully today. Hikaru Nakamura had a pleasant advantage against Vassily Ivanchuk and even won a pawn, but the double rook ending ended in a draw. Magnus Carlsen also won a pawn, with Black against Sergei Karjakin, who had enough activity to compensate. Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu didn't get much against Teimour Radjabov's 3...f5 Ruy Lopez.

General info

The Kings Tournament takes place June 11-21 at the Natural Gas Documentation and Information Centre in Medias, Romania. Magnus Carlsen, Vassily Ivanchuk, Sergey Karjakin, Hikaru Nakamura, Teimour Radjabov and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu play a double round-robin with one rest day after five rounds. Games start 15.30 local time (14.30 CET).

Round 4 - report by GM Dorian Rogozenco

The fourth round of the Kings' Tournament brought three draws: for the first time there were no decisive games. The reason for it partly became clear at the press conference, where both Karjakin and Radjabov admitted that they are still feeling the tiredness after being in Kazan, where the Candidates matches were played (Radjabov as a player, Karjakin as Kramnik's second).

On Tuesday Karjakin achieved nothing against Carlsen's Caro-Kann. Moreover, at some point the Russian had to forget about his initial ambitions and play for a draw in an endgame with a pawn down. He succeeded thanks to the activity of his pieces.



Radjabov, against Nisipeanu, implemented the bold Jänisch/Schliemann Gambit - a sharp opening variation, which the Azerbaijani GM plays from time to time. He had no problems to achieve equality with Black and could even try to fight for advantage at some point.



Nakamura-Ivanchuk saw the Nimzo-Indian, where the Ukrainian chose a rare variation with Black, allowing Nakamura to achieve a promising position. However, with a timely pawn sac Ivanchuk traded queens and entered a rook endgame which he led very confidently to a draw.



N.B. If everything goes according to plan, at the end of the fifth round I (PD) will arrive in Medias to cover the second half of the tournament. At the moment of writing I'm about to start my next trip, to Romania. Three weekends at different places abroad, wow!

Games round 4 - notes by GM Dorian Rogozenco

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Videos

 

Kings Tournament 2011 | Schedule & results Kings Tournament 2011 | Round 4 standings

Link

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC