The Week in Chess

Levon Aronian was obviously very happy after destroying Wesley So in a great attacking game with black. Aronian played a novelty shown to him by Peter Leko and then sacrificed a piece for a tremendous initiative. So defended reasonably well but couldn't defend in the end. After a very long run of poor form lasting back to the end of the Wijk aan Zee tournament of 2014 Aronian finally seems to be back in form. He joins Veselin Topalov in the lead on 3.5.

The other wild game of the day was between Hikaru Nakamrua and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Nakamura looked to have the advantage early on but the position drifted into a drawn bishops of opposite colours endgame.

Anish Giri was surprised early on by Magnus Carlsen and played conservatively against his Sicilian. Carlsen admitted to being slightly outplayed and having to knuckle down to calculating some lines to secure the draw.

Alexander Grischuk seemed reasonably pleased to draw against Veselin Topalov. He admitted that he was playing "really badly this year" and that his 19.Bxf6 was a mistake (19.Bb3 which he didn't consider was a better move). The game drifted to a draw. Topalov was surprised by Grischuk's openign choice so went to an old variation with h5 and was concerned before Bxf6.

"It's better not to know anything than to remember something vaguely." Grischuk

Fabiano Caruana and Viswanathan Anand drew an Anti-Meran Gambit where Anand seemed to be doing well but he was concerned wtih inaccuracies creaping into his game again, a problem he'd looked to have solved in the last year.

Round 4 standings: Topalov, Aronian 3pts, Giri, Carlsen 2.5pts, Vachier-Lagrave, Nakamura 2pts, So, Grischuk 1.5pts, Anand, Caruana 1pt.

Round 5 pairings 27th August 7pm BST: Aronian-Grischuk, Carlsen-So, Nakamura-Giri, Anand-Vachier-Lagrave, Topalov-Caruana.