The special on the menu for the fourth round of the GRENKE Chess Classic was the duel between Magnus Carlsen and his most recent world championship challenger, Fabiano Caruana. Living up to the expectations all comers, the matchup saw the top two players of the world fight fiercely over the board for 71 moves before finally signing peace.
Meanwhile, all of the other games of the round finished decisively: Levon Aronian beat Peter Svidler, Arkadij Naiditsch defeated Vincent Keymer, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave got the better of Georg Meier, while Viswanathan Anand hopped into the tournament lead with a win over GM Francisco Vallejo Pons.
Read more: Vishy scores a second win to join Carlsen in the lead
Read more: Video Impressions | Round 4 | GRENKE Chess Classic 2019
Round 3 of the GRENKE Chess Classic showed some intense fight. Magnus Carlsen was again the last to leave the playing but this time his opponent Viswanathan Anand was able to hold the draw. Besides the GRENKE Chess Open finished with the win of German grandmaster Daniel Fridman.
Read more: Video Impressions | Round 3 | GRENKE Chess Classic 2019
In the previous round, we saw Magnus Carlsen toil a third time for about six hours to retain his lead in the event. In the highly tumultuous encounter, the tide seemed to be going Carlsen’s way. Vishy had erred early in the game. But then the Madras Tiger fought tooth and nail to keep things together and despite a few ups and downs towards the end, managed to save the day. Immediately after the game, both players were seen analyzing enthusiastically. Want to know what they discussed? Come, find out what our hidden camera recorded!
Much like the first two rounds of the GRENKE Chess Classic, Magnus Carlsen was seen playing well into the sixth hour of the round and was the last to finish in an action-packed third day. Unlike in his last two rounds, Carlsen did not manage to break through the staunch defence of Vishy Anand. Earlier in the day, Peter Svidler had won his second straight game of the tournament against Georg Meier of Germany. Following Vishy’s save against Magnus, Svidler has joined the world champion in the tournament lead. In the second decisive game of the round, Fabiano Caruana brought down the crowd favourite Vincent Keymer.
Once again, Magnus Carlsen played the longest game of the day | Photo: Georgios Souleidis
Read more: Carlsen fails to break Anand's defence; Svidler joins tournament lead