The Week in Chess

Tan Zhongyi leads the women's Candidates with 3/4 going into the first rest day. Tan should have lost the lead and there should also have been three decisive games. Instead there was just the one, Humpy Koneru played what in retrospect was over aggressively and lost to Nurgyul Salimova. Anna Muzychuk should have won her first game but again made a real hash of things. Tan's escape against Kateryna Lagno was if anything more miraculous and Goryachkina drew against Vaishali.

Humpy Koneru had three uneventful draws so far, today she clearly decided that Nurgyul Salimova was a player she had to try to beat and played very enterprisingly and aggressively, the problem was twofold, firstly there was no need for panic stations yet, and two this is just not her style. Salimova defended resolutely and indeed she was never worse, 22...g4? and 24...Kg7? weren't good and the attempt to bail out with a Queen exchange on move 27 just left white with a winning position.

Kateryna Lagno was heading for victory against Tan Zhongyi with her favourite anti-Sicilian system but made what must be regarded as a huge hash of the conversion and eventually had to settle for a draw. She had a nice edge for a while but 28...Qa2? was a big error that got Tan into trouble. A tactical try with 35...e4 should have sealed Tan's fate as it only delivered a completely lost position. Then things started to go wrong for Lagno, 42.Rxb6? should have been replaced with 42.Bd4! Tan was still lost but she had play and hope, 51...h4! left only one winning move 52.Bf2! as it was 52.Be5? allowed Tan to save the game and her tournament lead.

Anna Muzychuk has had a strange and frustrating event so far, today she should have scored her first win against Lei Tingjie, she nursed an extra pawn into a major piece endgame but it looked at first like it wouldn't be enough. When Queen's came off the task became a little easier but it still looked like a draw until a fatal error at move 40, black needed to stop f4+ and she didn't. That should have been that but there was still the technical endgame of Rook vs Two pawns, winning but Muzychuk threw away the win straight away. 53.Rd5+? (53.Rg8 was the only winning move) it was tricky but I think not so for a professional, I seem to remember seeing this in a chess course.

Aleksandra Goryachkina against Rameshbabu Vaishali was a fairly uneventful Symmetrical English drawn on move 40.

Round 4 Standings: 1st Tan Zhongyi 3pts, 2nd Goryachkina 2.5pts, 3rd= Lagno, Vaishali, Salimova 2pts, 6th= Koneru, Lei Tingjie, Muzychuk 1.5pts.

Rest Day Monday 8th April

Round 5 9th April at 19:30BST: Lei-Lagno, Vaishali-Muzychuk, Koneru-Goryachkina, Tan-Salimova.