In Tuesday’s action it was the Superbet tournament that had some life, with long games and two decisive results. “Therefore”, we were treated to four draws in four games in the Sigeman tournament, three of which didn’t make it to the time control while the fourth barely did.
Perhaps the safety and relative lack of action in the latter tournament was because it was the penultimate round - and the sixth round without a rest day. Today (Wednesday) the tournament finishes, and these are the pairings:
Keymer (2) - Erigaisi (2.5)
Grandelius (3.5) - Van Foreest (3)
Gukesh (3.5) - Svidler (4)
Mishra (4) - Gelfand (1.5)
It would be an incredible achievement if Abhimanyu Mishra, all of 14 years old and by far the lowest-rated player in the tournament, managed to win this last game and the tournament too. Still, even with Black and having a poor tournament (at least at the start), Boris Gelfand remains a great player, and even a draw - never mind a win - is not guaranteed. It would be a great story if Mishra pulled it out, though. There are four players with a shot at first though, three of whom could finish in clear first. So there’s everything to play for except in the Keymer-Erigaisi game.
Back to Superbet. There was a four-way tie for first entering round 4, but now Fabiano Caruana is in clear first after defeating Ian Nepomniachtchi. Caruana and Nepo started the round with 2 out of 3, and they were tied for first with Richard Rapport and Wesley So, who were paired with each other. Rapport-So was drawn; likewise the games Ding Liren vs. Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave vs. Anish Giri.
It seemed that Caruana-Nepomniachtchi was also headed for a peaceful finish, but the nominally equal queen and knight vs. queen and bishop endgame they reached at the end of the first time control was easier for White to handle. Caruana outplayed Nepo, won a couple of pawns, and then returned them to get his king to safety and organize a winning attack. It was an impressive victory by Caruana, who is starting to look like the perennial 2800+ player he used to be. (May it be so.)
The day’s other victor was Alireza Firouzja, who defeated Bogdan Deac when the latter got a bit careless about his kingside. The position had been equal throughout, but when Deac’s queen went on a prolonged queenside adventure Firouzja was able to take advantage. A one-off win, or the beginning of a Firouzja comeback to where he was a year and a half ago, looking like Magnus Carlsen’s heir apparent? We’ll see.
Here are the pairings for round 5 (Wednesday), after which the players have a rest day:
Nepomniachtchi (2) - Vachier-Lagrave (1.5)
Duda (1.5) - Caruana (3)
Firouzja (2) - Ding (2)
So (2.5) - Deac (1)
Giri (2) - Rapport (2.5)