Superbet Classic, Round 4

MVL defeats Gukesh to tie for first while sending the champ to the cellar.

It was another good round, with no signs of the supposed draw death that has at least one player scurrying off to try 959 other positions. (Of course, everyone “knows” that standard chess is played out - just ask Capablanca.) There were two decisive games out of five, with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave crushing World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju on the white side of a Scotch (Black’s decision to castle short was a first, serious errors) and Levon Aronian won impressively against Jan-Krzysztof Duda on the Black side of a 4.Ng5 Two Knights.

Two of the three draws were more or less balanced throughout, but Alireza Firouzja was crushing Wesley So until a couple of mistakes - especially his big tactical oversight on move 33 - allowed So to escape. (Today’s games, with my notes to the aforementioned battles, are here.)

Current standings: Caruana, Praggnanandhaa, and Vachier-Lagrave are tied for first with 2.5 out of 4. Firouzja, So, Deac, and Aronian are on 50%, and Gukesh, Duda, and Abdusattorov have 1.5 points apiece.