The Week in Chess

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave maintained a half point lead going into Saturday's rest day after four rounds of the FIDE Grand Prix in Tashkent. All the games were drawn in the fourth round but the games were generally hard fought.

Vachier-Lagrave was the last to finish as he tried to use the extra pawn Sergey Karjakin gave him just out of the opening. The bishops of opposite colours gave black formidable drawing chances but it was suffering all the way for him before he got his half point.

Anish Giri got a small opening advantage against Fabiano Caruana after playing a slightly unusual move order in the Catalan. The pressure was persistant rather than really dangerous and in the end Giri stopped believing in his chances to convert and the game became equal.

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov uncorked a piece of Candidates preparation against Hikaru Nakamura. However Nakamura had seen the idea before even if he couldn't actually remember what conclusion he came to. 14.Nf4 was the key idea sacrificing a piece, 14...fxe5! 15.Nxg6 Rg8? was a mistake with 15...Rh7 being at least all right for black. 18.Kd2 was a winning advantage for white according to both players. Instead 18.a4 followed and black was at least OK. Nakamura was better at some point but the game eventually drifted to a draw.

Baadur Jobava and Teimour Radjabov drew a very interesting game in a Gruenfeld sideline where both players were soon on their own. Jobava kept the pressure up on Radjabov throughout the game but black defended very well and the game was drawn.

Andreikin against Rustam Kasimdzhanov and Boris Gelfand against Dmitry Jakovenko saw black equalise out of the opening and the games finish in early draws.

All the games have notes to them in the PGN file based on the player press conferences. Even the quick draws had a least some points of theoretical interest and the player comments were very interesting today.

Round 4 standings: 1 Vachier-Lagrave 3/4 2-4 Nakamura, Andreikin, Karjakin 2.5pts 5-8 Radjabov, Giri, Mamedyarov, Jobava 2pts 9-11 Caruana, Gelfand, Jakovenko 1.5pts 12 Kasimdzhanov 1pt

Round 5 pairings Sunday 26th October 2014 10am BST: Gelfand-Vachier-Lagrave, Jobava-Jakovenko, Andreikin-Karjakin, Giri-Radjabov, Mamedyarov-Kasimdzhanov, Nakamura-Caruana.