Zurich Rd4: Anand topples Nakamura, leads!

Round Four

Indian Chess journalist Vijay Kumar brings us a glimpse of the events in Zurich, a small tour of the town and footage from round four:

Vijay Kumar reporting live from Zurich to his audience of, literally, millions of people

Kramnik, Vladimir ½-½ Karjakin, Sergey
A rather odd opening choice from Kramnik, as after a very, very unusual transposition the players reached a variation of the 3.g3 Paulsen Sicilian, one in which Black was up a tempo as he did not have to waste time going e7-e6 and only then e6-e5.

Somehow Kramnik's four draws are good enough for clear third

Black did not experience any serious difficulties from the opening. He was able to equalize comfortably with his break on d5, and even though White had aggressively expanded on the kingside his attack there was halted. Kramnik had to be careful not to over-extend his position as his king did not have the pawn cover to protect him anymore.

Sergey Karjakin will finish his classical portion with white against the current leader

After a series of trades down the e-file and the simplification of most of the queenside the players reached time control. Black was active, but he had no targets while White's king was too weak for his pieces to leave him undefended. Since neither side could make progress the draw was agreed.

Anand, Viswanathan 1-0 Nakamura, Hikaru
The same battleground in which Anand obtained his sole victory against Carlsen in last year's World Championship match. There was a significant twist to it as Nakamura chose to eliminate the f4 bishop as soon as possible, but the ideas of the position were similar: White's space advantage guaranteed him good chances on the queenside, While Black hoped to hold down the position on that flank, not having to worry with the locked up kingside and center.

Hikaru Nakamura dips slightly below 2800 with this loss

Nakamura might have played too passively today. His decision to trade the knights on e5 and pull back with the bishop to g7 left him basically down a piece in the important queenside battle. Anand took full advantage of the situation, penetrating first with his major pieces and then bringing his knight to finish off the attack. Nakamura tried to lash out in the kingside with g5, but was quickly stopped by a nice sequence by Anand, forcing the American to close down the kingside again! With that battleground closed the immense pressure from White's pieces on the queenside proved too much; Nakamura's position simply collapsed.

Viswanathan Anand goes into the last day of classical chess with a half point lead

Aronian, Levon ½-½ Caruana, Fabiano
What a traditional battleground! The Lasker variation of the Queen's Gambit Decline has been around, well, since Lasker's time! The variations have received a complete re-do recently as White has found new ways of creating pressure, some of which involve very creative kingside attacks.

Both Aronian and Caruana have 1.5/4, which will be tallied as
three points since classical games count for double

Today’s game was much more positional. Aronian tried to prove that his queenside pressure was sufficient for the advantage, while Caruana turtled inside his solid pawn structure and hoped that his lack of weaknesses would allow him to have enough time to finish his development.

Even though these positions are always more pleasant for White, they are extremely difficult to crack. Aronian was unable to put real pressure on his opponent's position. After the Italian was able to exchange knights it was clear that White's edge had evaporated and the draw was agreed.

Caruana and Aronian casually discussing their game

Replay Round Three Games

Classical Standings

Note: Games played in the Classical will count for double

Blitz Final Standings

Note: Blitz points do not count for the final tally

Schedule

With the blitz finished the pairings are as follows in the classical portion of the tournament, which starts tomorrow:

The Rapid portion will be on February 19th.

Schedule of Commentary on www.playchess.com

Links Official tournament site Classical games in PGN All Blitz games in PGN The games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 13 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.