The Week in Chess

Magnus Carlsen scored a crushing win against Wesley So in the fourth round of the Bilbao Masters to take a three point lead over Hikaru Nakamura. The other two games were drawn.

Carlsen played 4.d3 against the Berlin and his 9.a3 was a new idea just grabbing some space with his pawns. Carlsen manoevered his knight to f5 in the following moves and somewhere around here So needed to find the time to castle. After 18.Nd2 computers don't see black in too much danger but both players thought black was in desperate straits and So didn't put up much resistance with 20...Kd7? and 21...Nxe4 after which Carlsen wrapped things up simply and smartly.

"My play is getting better day by day" Magnus Carlsen to Tarjei J. Svensen after the game.

With Bilbao turning into the Carlsen show the other games were very much in the shade. Wei Yi chose a simple repetition out of the opening which Sergey Karjakin saw no reason to avoid. Anish Giri was a little better out of the opening aginast Hikaru Nakamura but never really looked like making much of it. Next up for Carlsen is Anish Giri.

Round 5 pairings Sunday 17th July 3pm UK time: So-Wei Yi, Karjakin-Nakamura, Giri-Carlsen.

Round 4 Standings (3pts for a win 1 for a draw) 1 Carlsen 9pts, 2 Nakamura 6pts, 3 Giri 4pts, 4 Wei Yi 3pts, 5 So 3pts, 6 Karjakin 3pts