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Granted it is not a surprise that the number of leaders has been whittled down drastically, as is the case for a large open, but it is not typical to see one player take sole lead at the European Individual Championship after just four of the eleven rounds.
David Navara, who had started with 100% and very aggressive play well-suited to the tournament format, was finally held to a draw by Evgeny Najer. It wasn’t for lack of trying and the game was certainly exciting enough, but he could not get the Russian to err, and when the tactics cooled down it was clearly equal.
Navara tried to keep the streak going, but Najer refused to wilt
Of the top five players still on 3.0.3 entering the fourth round, the one player able to keep the pace was Ukrainian Anton Korobov, a player weaned on taking strong opens, and who has shown excellent form so far. In round three for example, he beat Dragan Solak (2607) when the latter missed a sneaky tactic that cost him the game.
This position is actually one after the Turkish grandmaster resigned to
Korobov. The Ukrainian played 22.e5! and Black resigned in view of
22…Rc8 and the killing blow. Can you see it? White to play and win.
Anton Korobov had many an adventure on the board in round four, but ultimately preveailed against...
... Constantin Lupulescu.
In round four, he was the only leader to score a win in an excting game against Romainian grandmaster Constantin Lupulescu.
Bulgarian GM Ivan Cheparinov, former second of Topalov, is at 2.5/4
|
Rk
|
SNo
|
Ti.
|
Name
|
FED
|
Rtg
|
Pts
|
| 1 | 11 | GM | Korobov Anton | UKR | 2687 | 4.0 |
| 2 | 37 | GM | Najer Evgeniy | RUS | 2634 | 3.5 |
| 3 | 71 | GM | Vovk Yuri | UKR | 2588 | 3.5 |
| 4 | 1 | GM | Navara David | CZE | 2735 | 3.5 |
| 5 | 64 | GM | Grigoryan Karen H. | ARM | 2596 | 3.5 |
| 6 | 22 | GM | Motylev Alexander | RUS | 2665 | 3.5 |
| 7 | 30 | GM | Smirin Ilia | ISR | 2650 | 3.5 |
| 8 | 45 | GM | Sutovsky Emil | ISR | 2626 | 3.5 |
| 9 | 47 | GM | Kempinski Robert | POL | 2625 | 3.5 |
| 10 | 84 | GM | Stefansson Hannes | ISL | 2573 | 3.0 |
| 11 | 81 | GM | Vocaturo Daniele | ITA | 2579 | 3.0 |
| 12 | 109 | GM | Godena Michele | ITA | 2502 | 3.0 |
| 13 | 113 | GM | Rombaldoni Axel | ITA | 2488 | 3.0 |
| 14 | 67 | GM | Ipatov Alexander | TUR | 2592 | 3.0 |
| 15 | 49 | GM | Beliavsky Alexander G | SLO | 2623 | 3.0 |
| 16 | 60 | GM | Goganov Aleksey | RUS | 2605 | 3.0 |
| 17 | 3 | GM | Eljanov Pavel | UKR | 2727 | 3.0 |
| 18 | 44 | GM | Lupulescu Constantin | ROU | 2626 | 3.0 |
| 19 | 51 | GM | Bukavshin Ivan | RUS | 2622 | 3.0 |
| 20 | 8 | GM | Moiseenko Alexander | UKR | 2695 | 3.0 |
Photos by Yoav Nis
LinksThe games are being 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. |
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