The Week in Chess

It was all change at the top of the leader board as Wesley So defeated Fabiano Caruana and Alexander Grischuk beat Bogdan-Daniel Deac in the fourth round of the Superbet Chess Classic. So and Grischuk thus took the lead on 2.5/4 have both had quiet starts to the event.

Both Wesley So and Caruana were in combative mood in their game. Caruana's 3...Bc5 is a sideline albeit one he and Ding played just last month in the FTX Crypto Cup. So's 13.f3 was a fighting move, Caruana snagged an extremely hot pawn, but it seems that 21...Na6 was just a bit too much, 21...Nbd7 and the game would have continued to be more or less balanced, as it was after 22.h4 Caruana was down to just one move to keep things going, 22..Rad8, which was far from obviously good. After 22...h5? 23.Qc1 Kh7?! (another not great idea) So was easily winning and he converted the endgame two pawns up with no problem.

Alexander Grischuk won a pawn against Bogdan-Daniel Deac but the Queen and Rook heavy piece endgame had drawing tendencies, Deac couldn't afford any further errors and 52...Rxa4? (52...Qd5!) proved fatal. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Teimour Radjabov are such good friends they find it nearly impossible to play a proper game against each other, their last decisive round robin game was back in 2010 - they drew by repetition in 21 moves. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was held by Constantin Lupulescu in a French Defence, MVL got the good knight vs bad bishop endgame but was a pawn down, a draw was the natural result. Anish Giri's 13.a4 was a novelty in the Catalan against Levon Aronian, from some time Giri was quite a bit better but by move 30 there was total equality and a draw followed.

Round 4 standings: 1st So 2.5pts, 2nd Grischuk 2.5pts, 3rd Caruana 2pts, 4th Deac 2pts, 4th Lupulescu 2pts, 6th Mamedyarov 2pts, 7th Aronian 2pts, 8th Radjabov 2pts, 9th MVL 1.5pts, 10th Giri 1.5.

Round 5 pairings Wednesday 9th June 2021 1pm: Deac-So, Radjabov-Grischuk, Lupulescu-Mamedyarov, Aronian-MVL, Caruana-Giri.