Hopefully round 4 of the Sigeman & Co. tournament was just a respite, and the bloodletting will resume in round 5. Three of the games were drawn, and as far as I saw there were no huge opportunities for any of the players. The most notable game was the least notable game: Boris Gelfand played risk-free chess with White, making an easy draw with Vincent Keymer to finally get on the scoreboard. The other draws saw two of the three co-leaders get small advantages with the white pieces before their opponents equalized and drew. Still, that’s good news for those co-leaders, Peter Svidler and Abhimanyu Mishra, because the third co-leader entering the round, Dommaraju Gukesh, lost to Arjun Erigaisi.
Erigaisi was better and maybe even winning early on, but 25.Qc2 (instead of, say, 25.Nd2) let the advantage slip. (Objectively speaking. As a practical matter, Black’s position remained more difficult.) He got a second chance when on moves 32 and 33 Gukesh failed to sac on h3 - 32…Bxh3! maintained equality thanks to some fancy tactics, and 33…Nxh3! would have kept him in the game, albeit with the worse position. Missing those opportunities, his precarious king proved his downfall, and he resigned after White’s 38th move.
It looks like they won’t have a rest day, as it’s only a seven-round tournament, so tomorrow/today (Monday) we’ll see these games:
Van Foreest (1.5) - Erigaisi (2)
Keymer (1) - Svidler (3)
Grandelius (2.5) - Gelfand (.5)
Gukesh (2.5) - Mishra (3)