Having enjoyed a rest day on Tuesday, the players in the World Cup showed much more fight than they had in round 3. Only one game in today’s action seemed to me like the players were only going through the motions (and that’s just a guess), but in most of the games the effort was obvious. And it paid off, too, as five of the 16 games had a winner and at least two other games should not have ended in a draw.
Two games were especially noteworthy. The first, though it was really little more than a tactical oversight in a drawish position, came in the game between Vincent Keymer and Magnus Carlsen. Carlsen had equalized comfortably in a QGD, and while Keymer had a mild initiative nothing too worrisome was happening. Then Carlsen played 36…Nc7??, overlooking the problem that 37.Nd6 was a double attack (threatening both 38.Nxb7 and 38.Rf5). This won a pawn and with it, the game.
The second shocker was Wesley So’s loss, with White, to Alexey Sarana. So badly and repeatedly underestimated the danger on the long diagonal to g2, and it eventually cost him. Sarana missed a couple of opportunities along the way, but he kept up the pressure and finished nicely when So gave him one chance too many.
The other victories: Nils Grandelius ground Jaime Santos down in an ending with rooks and opposite-colored bishops, Vidit Gujrathi blew away Etienne Bacrot with a nice attack against the Sicilian, and Ferenc Berkes outplayed Ruslan Ponomariov in good style on the white side of a 4.f3 Nimzo-Indian.
Missed chances: Arjun Erigaisi was much better or winning for a very, very long time with Black against Javokhir Sindarov, but with 62…Kc6 instead of 62…Kc6 he let his opponent escape with a draw. The weirdest thing I saw was Peter Svidler missing what looks like a very simple tactic against Nijat Abasov. They are very strong players, certainly much stronger than I am, but even so I can’t figure out how they both missed 16.Nxd5, or if they didn’t what it was that they missed after that. The move is natural and the variations are short and straightforward, so my best guess is that Abasov just blundered and Svidler trusted his opponent implicitly. If someone knows the true story, though, please provide it in the comments. Finally, while I didn’t notice any huge misses in the game between Hikaru Nakamura and Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, they both squandered meaningful advantages in the game.
Finally, I’ll single out the game between Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Leinier Dominguez as a model ending in its way for both sides. Dominguez did a nice job of keeping a very drawish queen and opposite-colored bishop ending going for a long time, and giving Wojtaszek some genuine problems to solve. To his credit, Wojtaszek cleared every hurdle and saved the draw. If you’re inclined to say “Wow, big deal”, compare the Grandelius-Santos game mentioned above. Grandelius started with less - no extra pawn, for starters - and won that game. Both games are studying, as they are instructive for those who are inclined to think that opposite-colored bishops in the endings imply an easy draw in almost every case. (Nope.)
Will Carlsen or So make a comeback? Will the “older” players like Nakamura manage to subdue Pragg and the other kiddies? We’ll see; for now, here’s a selection from today’s action.