The Week in Chess

Magnus Carlsen took hold of the Sinquefield Cup in St Louis after defeating Gata Kamsky in the fourth round and obtained the outright lead. Two draws for Carlsen will secure at least a share of first place although Hikaru Nakamura has white in Round 5 and he will need to survivie that. At the same time Levon Aronian defeated the former leader Hikaru Nakamura.

Gata Kamsky tried to play for a draw against Magnus Carlsen using the exchange variation of the Ruy Lopez. This however allowed Carlsen to pretty much equalise and then take the initiative. It was only with 17.Nd2 and then 18.f3 that Carlsen obtained an advantage and then a few moves later Carlsen won a pawn. Carlsen might not have been as accurate as he should have been but he still brought home the point rather easily in the end.

Levon Aronian also had much the better of his opening against Hikaru Nakamura in an h3 King's Indian. Most probably 10...h6 was at least a double edged decision if not wrong because it proved a weakness that Aronian started to probe. Nakamura tried to get counter-play by sacrificing a piece which led to an open board with lots of tactics. The position must be close to being lost for Nakamura at this stage but he did at least manage to reduce play to the king=side (perhaps Aronian could have kept queens on). Aronian finally cracked Nakamura with the elegant 45.g3! fxg3 46.f4 fixing the pawn structure into a static winning position.

Round 4 Standings: Carlsen 3/4, Nakamura 2.5, Aronian 2, Kamsky 0.5.

Round 5 Sat 14th Sept 2013: Nakamura-Carlsen and Aronian-Kamsky.