The Week in Chess

The FIDE World Cup Round 4 has progressed to the stage where there are only 8 matches and 16 players left. The first game of round 4 saw three decisive result with wins for Gata Kamsky over Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Fabiano Caruana over Julio Granda Zuniga and finally Vladimir Kramnik over Vassily Ivanchuk with the black pieces. In addition Peter Svidler escaped a lost position against Le Quang Liem.

Kamsky won an extremely publishable game against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov where he sacrificed many pieces for an eventually decisive attack. Of course the game was pretty but as Peter Svidler said "that was a bit one sided". Maybe Mamedyarov's 15...Rfd8 was dubious with Korchnoi playing the correct 15...Rbd8 as far back as 1963. After that Mamedyarov just had to hope that Kamsky wouldn't destroy his position. Later perhaps 23.Rfe4?! wasn't the most accurate (23.Re3) as 23...Qxe5 gave Mamedyarov some saving chances. After 23...Kg7 Kamsky only needed a dark squared check to win and finished with a pretty rook sacrifice.

Fabiano Caruana has played a lot of Scotch Openings recently and it seemed he really had a much better handle on the subtleties than his opponent Julio Granda Zuniga. Formerly 20...f5? was the losing and pretty terrible blunder missing the en-passant capture left the pawn protected but Granda had probably played a number of inferior moves on the run up to it and was already struggling.

Vladimir Kramnik beat Vassily Ivanchuk in a deeply prepared Queen's Gambit Variation he looked at for the 2011 Candidates. Ivanchuk stood worse but managed to get into a technical Queen and Rook ending he should have held but he became very nervous in time trouble and after 40.f4? (time control) his exposed king combined with his opponent's passed a-pawn meant saving the game was impossible.

Peter Svidler got into a terrible mess against Le Quang Liem, Svidler knew more theory but this in fact did not help as Le's new 13.0-0-0 (Fressinet went the other way in the Alekhine Memorial against Vitiugov a game Le did not remember) covering the b-pawn left Svidler struggling. 14...f5 may not be the right move as 15.Nd5! is very annoying. 23.Rxd5! Rxd5 24.e6+! was white's concrete win missed by both players. After Le missed this Svidler was back in the game. 33.Kb3 allowed Svidler to equalise and 38...Ke6 playing for a win may have been best although probably the position should be drawn. Svidler was just relieved to have escaped.

The remaining games were drawn. Morozevich-Tomashevsky was an English and the last game to finish. Andreikin-Karjakin was a Queen's Indian drawn in 18 moves, Nakamura got nothing against Korobov's Najdorf and took the repetition on offer, Vachier-Lagrave against Gelfand looked like some crazy Gruenfeld theoretical line both players knew in it's entirity and finished in perpetual check.

Brief notes in the PGN to Kamsky-Mamedyarov and Le-Svidler below.