The Week in Chess

Vassily Ivanchuk won a fine game against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in a complex Sicilian to take the sole lead of the Tata Steel Masters on 3.5/4 going into the first rest day. Ivanchuk steadily outplayed his opponent and then suddenly won after his opponent overlooked a tactic in an admittedly very difficult position. There is a rest day on Wednesday and the event has an away day in Rotterdam on Thursday with the start time being pushed back half an hour.

Magnus Carlsen returned to 50% with a win against Loek van Wely. The opening was a rather drawish Gruenfeld Defence but gradually Van Wely got into serious time pressure and after the poor 25.g5 giving up the b-pawn he didn't seem to have any further chances.

Ivan Saric admitted he got a bit lucky against Baadur Jobava. Jobava took huge risks in the opening to bring about early tactics and after 15 moves looked to have a huge advantage. 17.Ke3 was a poor move and 19.h4 was another one and after that whilst things remained complex he was winning and converted.

Ding Liren moved into contention with another win this time defeating Teimour Radjabov on the black side of a King's Indian, also a favourite of his opponent. A razer sharp game turned on one decision with 29.Qh6? being a losing move rather than 29.Qh5 with ideas of calming things down with a queen exchange.

The remaining three games were drawn. Anish Giri has a poor record against Hou Yifan and whilst he tried hard to sharpen things with black the game ended in a repetition and a draw in an equal position. Levon Aronian played for nice pressure in a Catalan endgame but after Wojtaszek survived some tactical tricks a drawn queen endgame was reached. Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So drew a well played Ruy Lopez in 31 moves.

Round 4 standings: 1 Ivanchuk 3.5/4, 2-3 Caruana, Ding Liren 3pts 4 So, Wojtaszek 2.5pts 6-9 Giri, Carlsen, Vachier-Lagrave, Saric, Ivan 2pts 10-11 Aronian, Radjabov 1.5pts 12-13 Hou Yifan, Van Wely 1pt 14 Jobava 0.5pts

Round 5 Pairings 1pm GMT Rotterdam: Vachier-Lagrave- Van Wely, Ding Liren-Ivanchuk, Ivan Saric-Radjabov, Giri-Jobava, So-Hou Yifan, Wojtaszek-Caruana, Carlsen-Aronian.