Whatever else one might say about Ian Nepomniachtchi and his chess career, the man has figured out how to play in Candidates tournaments. He has won the last two Candidates, and with his second win in this tournament he is leading this one as well with a +2 score heading into the first rest day.
Nepo’s victim in round 4 was Santosh Vidit Gujrathi, who was coming off a loss to Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa in round 3. Vidit played the Berlin, and Nepo went for the classic Berlin endgame, a fairly rare guest in contemporary play. Nepo had an interesting new idea with 11.g4 and 12.Nh2, looking to mobilize his kingside majority as fast as possible. Vidit had the choice at various points to fight against White’s plan or to go for his own queenside counterplay, and Vidit steadfastly stuck to the latter.
He chose wrongly. Vidit was under serious pressure from move 27 on, and while he wasn’t “officially” lost until 37…Be8, he was short of time and in a difficult position that would have been hard to save in any case. For Nepo, it was a well-played game and a deserved victory, and he’s now in clear first, half a point ahead of his closest pursuers, going into the rest day.
The other three games were drawn. Hikaru Nakamura had White in a 5.d3 Ruy Lopez, and got nothing against Praggnanandhaa’s good prep and good play. They quickly called it quits, making a draw by repetition after White’s 24th move. The other two games were considerably longer - Fabiano Caruana vs. Dommaraju Gukesh went 74 moves and Nijat Abasov vs. Alireza Firouzja went 64 moves (for those who like numerical coincidences, Nepo-Vidit went 44 moves) - but it was clear much earlier, in both games, that the players would split the point. I don’t think there were any real missed opportunities in the Abasov-Firouzja game, but maybe Caruana missed out on some practical chances when he played 18.Nxe5 rather than 18.N3h4. That’s about it though, and that wasn’t much.
Overall then, a fairly calm round. Here are the games, with my comments, and here are the pairings for round 5 on Tuesday. (It’s possible that when the organizers came up with the dates, it was arranged in part so that the players would be off during the eclipse - Toronto is almost in the path of totality. If you’re in the path, enjoy it - safely.)
Firouzja (1.5) - Nakamura (1.5)
Gukesh (2.5) - Abasov (1.5)
Vidit (1.5) - Caruana (2.5)
Praggnanandhaa (2) - Nepomniachtchi (3)