2016 Cup Chronicle Issue 4

It appears that even chess players are not fans of Mondays, as round 4 of the 2016 Sinquefield Cup saw five quiet draws. Levon Aronian and Fabiano Caruana drew very quickly, as the former was ill and did not feel up to the task. The game between Hikaru Nakamura and Veselin Topalov was the only one with any fireworks with an early queen sacrifice, but it was unfortunately mishandled later on. The rest of the games were quite balanced, with the players trading off most of the pieces and heading into drawn endgames. Aronian, Anand, So and Topalov are tied for the lead with 2.5/4.Anish Giri got extremely adventurous against Ding Liren, but the latter also settled for a draw instead of playing for a win by marching his king down the board. Levon Aronian unleashed the preparation he had been saving for months, but it was only enough to draw with black.
After suffering two losses, Peter Svidler had some real chances against Fabiano Caruana, but the U.S. Champion once again managed to escape with half a point. Nakamura and Anand had the most balanced game out of the round, with the former World Champion having a slight edge at one point. Aronian, So, Anand and Topalov are now tied for the lead with 2/3.
Hikaru Nakamura also had a fascinating game against Anish Giri, giving him one chance in the game to survive, but after being under the pressure the whole game was unable to find the saving move. The two other Americans, Wesley So and Fabiano Caruana, both drew as they escaped in worse positions.
The wild card of the event, Peter Svidler, is still trying to find his form as he played an excellent middle game in a very unorthodox position against Levon Aronian but was not able to keep the same level of accuracy in the endgame, giving the full point to the Armenian.
The two wild cards of the event, Peter Svidler and Ding Liren, did not seem very confident today, as the former blundered and the latter admitted to feeling shaken up after several bad results. The newest #2 player in the world, Vachier-Lagrave, who has gained almost 100 rating points in the past year, managed to escape with a draw in a much worse position.