FIDE Candidates 2016 - Video Recap Round 4

Opening: A06: Reti Opening

Player(s): Karjakin, Aronian

Nakamura vs. Giri was the first game to finish today. The preparation of the two contenders looked incredibly strong, and they played fast and furious in positions that would have taken hours to be analyzed by "normal" players. During the press conference, Nakamura said "well, it's a pretty normal line". Chess in the era of computers, at its best. Aronian and Svidler reached an amazing position out of the opening, with 4 pawns on the same file. the game went on to be a draw, but you don't see something like this very often at this level. ICC's commentator GM Lars Bo Hansen tweeted: "They should put a sign on Nakamura-Giri and Svidler-Aronian: don't try this at home!". Karjakin is Hero Of the Day. He won his first classical game against the great Anand, in Rubinstein style: get better pawn structure, tie defensive pieces down and circle from behind. After a number of years, Anand is not the first Indian player in the live rating list. Is it the inevitable sign of time going by? We'll see: it's not the first time that Anand is declared finished, too old, only to bounce back every time. Caruana apparently missed a gold opportunity to win his game against Topalov. They went for a classical Giuoco Piano, with a lot of maneuvering to control the center.  At move 37 Topalov gave up a whole piece. People watching the game were amazed and Topalov looked totally lost. But Fabiano wasn't able to see a path to the victory and - probably out of bad nerves - played an inexplicable rook move, that gave Veselin breath and eventually the draw. A interesting round, with some wild play and a new leader: Sergey Karjakin, solo on top after 4 rounds. Tomorrow round 5: Giri-Svidler, Anand-Nakamura, Topalov-Karjakin, Aronian-Caruana. Games start at 8AM EDT, 12 noon GMT, 13:00 CET and 15:00 Moscow.

Teacher's library (540) A06 Karjakin Aronian