FIDE World Cup R4.2: Dzagnidze, Goryachkina Force Tiebreaks; Harikrishna Out
GM Pentala Harikrishna was the highest-rated player to leave the FIDE World Cup on Friday after failing to level the score vs. GM Amin Tabatabaei. GM Magnus Carlsen and GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek played another tense draw and will go to tiebreaks along with six other matches.
In the women's section, both GM Aleksandra Goryachkina and GM Nana Dzagnidze managed to come back after a loss. In a match between two former world champions, GM Alexandra Kosteniuk eliminated GM Mariya Muzychuk.
How to watch?
The games of the FIDE World Cup can be found here: Open | Women. Chess.com provides daily commentary on Chess.com/TV and Twitch.tv/chess with GM Hou Yifan, GM Ben Finegold, IM Danny Rensch, GM Viswanathan Anand, and other guests.
Eight Indian players had traveled to Sochi for the open section of the FIDE World Cup. After the second day of round four, just one of them is still in the tournament. GM Vidit Gujrathi left GM Jeffery Xiong without a chance in the second game, as he found two difficult moves in this critical position, with Xiong needing a win:
The other Indian grandmaster still playing was Harikrishna, who suffered an upset defeat in the first game. He seemed to be getting close to winning with the white pieces but even though Tabatabaei was down a pawn for most of the endgame, it might have been a draw all the time:
GM Haik Martirosyan, GM Kacper Piorun, and GM Sam Shankland also drew their second game to reach round five. Just two players managed to level the score: GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov and GM Pavel Ponkratov.
Winning an endgame vs. GM Vasif Durarbayli in textbook style, Abdusattorov quietly played against White's worse pawn structure:
Ponkratov's win was quite different. After a great game the other day, he and GM Etienne Bacrot again played a very sharp battle where the French GM was initially OK out of the opening:
The FIDE World Cup said goodbye to one of its youngest participants. The 15-year-old GM Praggnanandhaa R. initially was well prepared in a sharp but also very theoretical Four Knights Sicilian, but GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave had looked into it even deeper. The Frenchman came up with a very strong positional queen sacrifice, and it was hard to defend after that:
Iranian GM Pouya Idani had a good run, but GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda was just too strong on Friday. The Polish GM slowly but surely outplayed his opponent in a Petroff middlegame:
Six matches saw two draws in both classical games. We're picking two very interesting games from those, starting with the world champion.
After catching his opponent slightly off-guard in the opening, Carlsen got a promising attacking position, especially after Wojtaszek accepted a pawn sacrifice. Like the day before, Carlsen was winning at one point but failed to convert.
Although he was two pawns down and in serious time trouble, on the board he had things under control. On a positive note, by drawing this game and reaching the tiebreaks, Carlsen has already slightly improved on his run at the 2017 World Cup.
The other draw that shouldn't be missed is GM Velimir Ivic vs. GM Dmitry Andreikin. Ivic, an 18-year-old grandmaster from Serbia, played an excellent game and reached a winning attack but then couldn't find his way out of checks:
Results round 4
| Fed | Player | Rtg | - | Fed | Player | Rtg | G1 | G2 | TB |
| GM Carlsen, Magnus | 2847 | - | GM Wojtaszek, Radoslaw | 2691 | ½-½ | ½-½ | . | ||
| GM Grischuk, Alexander | 2778 | - | GM Korobov, Anton | 2683 | ½-½ | ½-½ | . | ||
| GM Karjakin, Sergey | 2757 | - | GM Artemiev, Vladislav | 2704 | ½-½ | ½-½ | . | ||
| GM Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime | 2749 | - | GM Praggnanandhaa, R | 2608 | ½-½ | 1-0 | . | ||
| GM Duda, Jan-Krzysztof | 2738 | - | GM Idani, Pouya | 2614 | ½-½ | 1-0 | . | ||
| GM Harikrishna, Pentala | 2730 | - | GM Tabatabaei, M. Amin | 2613 | 0-1 | ½-½ | . | ||
| GM Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi | 2726 | - | GM Xiong, Jeffery | 2709 | 1-0 | 1-0 | . | ||
| GM Andreikin, Dmitry | 2724 | - | GM Ivic, Velimir | 2582 | ½-½ | ½-½ | . | ||
| GM Vitiugov, Nikita | 2724 | - | GM Svidler, Peter | 2714 | ½-½ | ½-½ | . | ||
| GM Esipenko, Andrey | 2716 | - | GM Dubov, Daniil | 2714 | ½-½ | ½-½ | . | ||
| GM Shankland, Sam | 2709 | - | GM Jumabayev, Rinat | 2637 | 1-0 | ½-½ | . | ||
| GM Fedoseev, Vladimir | 2696 | - | GM Kovalev, Vladislav | 2637 | 1-0 | 1-0 | . | ||
| GM Bacrot, Etienne | 2678 | - | GM Ponkratov, Pavel | 2629 | 1-0 | 0-1 | . | ||
| GM Haik Martirosyan | 2632 | - | GM Brkic, Ante | 2592 | 1-0 | ½-½ | . | ||
| GM Durarbayli, Vasif | 2625 | - | GM Abdusattorov, Nodirbek | 2634 | 1-0 | 0-1 | . | ||
| GM Piorun, Kacper | 2608 | - | GM Sindarov, Javokhir | 2558 | 1-0 | ½-½ | . |
In the women's tournament, four of eight matches will be decided in Saturday's tiebreaks. The four players who can enjoy a rest day are GM Valentina Gunina, GM Anna Muzychuk as well as former women's world champions GM Tan Zhongyi and GM Alexandra Kosteniuk. The latter won a very nice game against another former women's world champion:
Goryachkina and Dzagnidze survived a scare on the first day as they both beat their opponents convincingly with kingside attacks. Dzagnidze needed just 27 moves to force a tiebreak:
Results round 4
| Fed | Player | Rating | Fed | Player | Rating | G1 | G2 | TB | |
| GM Goryachkina, Aleksandra | 2596 | - | GM Stefanova, Antoaneta | 2463 | 0-1 | 1-0 | . | ||
| GM Lagno, Kateryna | 2559 | - | IM Assaubayeva, Bibisara | 2389 | ½-½ | ½-½ | . | ||
| GM Muzychuk, Mariya | 2550 | - | GM Kosteniuk, Alexandra | 2472 | ½-½ | 0-1 | . | ||
| GM Muzychuk, Anna | 2527 | - | IM Paehtz, Elisabeth | 2466 | ½-½ | 1-0 | . | ||
| GM Dzagnidze, Nana | 2523 | - | IM Shuvalova, Polina | 2489 | 0-1 | 1-0 | . | ||
| GM Tan, Zhongyi | 2511 | - | IM Khademalsharieh, Sarasadat | 2494 | ½-½ | 1-0 | . | ||
| IM Kashlinskaya, Alina | 2488 | - | IM Saduakassova, Dinara | 2483 | ½-½ | ½-½ | . | ||
| GM Batsiashvili, Nino | 2487 | - | GM Gunina, Valentina | 2437 | ½-½ | 0-1 | . |
The FIDE World Cup takes place in the Galaxy Leisure Complex in Sochi, Russia, until August 6, 2021. Each round consists of two classical games and, if necessary, a rapid/blitz tiebreak on the third day. The Open section began round two with 128 players and the women's section, 64.
Previous reports:
- FIDE World Cup: Goryachkina, Harikrishna Among 10 Players In Danger Zone
- FIDE World Cup: Giri, Mamedyarov Out; MVL Survives In Armageddon
- FIDE World Cup: Caruana Knocked Out
- FIDE World Cup R3: Dzagnidze, Mamedyarov, Yu In Trouble
- FIDE World Cup: Dominguez, Firouzja Out On Wild Armageddon Day
- FIDE World Cup: Nihal, Praggnanandhaa Among Qualifiers For Round 3
- Covid-19 Hits FIDE World Cup; Aronian Withdraws
- 14-Year-Old Murzin Reaches Round 2 FIDE World Cup
- FIDE World Cup: 28 Matches Go To Tiebreaks
- FIDE World Cup Begins With Chilean Brilliance
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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