The Week in Chess

Magnus Carlsen survived a very dangerous opening surprise in the Two Knights defence against Jorden Van Foreest in the fourth round of the Tata Steel Masters. Carlsen needed to avoid a loss to to set a new record of 111 undefeated games in the row, his last loss was to Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in July 2018. Carlsen was surprised in the opening and was struggling according to computer analysis but he retained decent practical chances, once the players were on their own he gradually fought back for a draw (after 31.Rf2?! Bc1 the position was equal but it was white that had to be careful). The players repeated to draw in 45 moves.

Wesley So took the lead in the tournament by beating Alireza Firouzja in a quiet Queen's Gambit Accepted where he steadily outplayed the youngster as white. Vladislav Artemiev won the only other decisive game of the day against tail-ender Vladislav Kovalev where a blunder on move 40 was decisive.

Anish Giri came up with a potentially important novelty 9.h5 in the London system against Nikita Vitiugov but in the end black managed to hold on. Jeffery Xiong kept a small edge against Fabiano Caruana but it wasn't enough to win.

Viswanathan Anand held a fairly comfortable draw against Yu Yangyi in 32 moves of a Ragozin. Daniil Dubov and Jan-Krzysztof Duda drew a Catalan in 23 moves where they quickly reached a drawish major piece endgame.

Round 4 Standings: 1st Wesley So 3/4pts, 2nd-6th Xiong, Caruana, Firouzja, Van Foreest, Artemiev 2.5pts 7th-10th Carlsen, Giri, Duda, Dubov, 2pts 11th-12th Vitiugov, Anand, 1.5pts 13th Yu Yangyi 1pt, 14th Kovalev 0.5pts.

Surya Shekhar Ganguly leads the Challengers Group on 3/4.

Rest Day Wednesday 15th Jan.

Round 5 - Thursday 16th Jan 1pm GMT (Eindhoven): Carlsen - Dubov, Caruana - Van Foreest, Anand - Xiong, Vitiugov - Yu, Firouzja - Giri, Kovalev - So, Duda - Artemiev.