Grenke Chess Classic, Round 4: Caruana Wins, Joins the Leaders

It's good times for Fabiano Caruana, as he goes from one success in Germany to another. After winning the Candidates in Berlin a week or so ago, he's now the co-leader of the Grenke Chess Classic after defeating Arkadij Naiditsch in round 4. All the other games were drawn - entirely cleanly, it seems, which is unusual and impressive. In fact, the Caruana-Naiditsch game also should have been drawn, too. The position was almost dead drawn, but Caruana managed to create a few problems for Black in the run-up to the time control, and it paid off. (While the material balance was different, I'm reminded of Karjakin-So from the Candidates, which looked like a sure, practically dead drawn game that Karjakin somehow managed to win. In both cases, the defender had a slightly offside knight that he couldn't quite manage to harmonize with the rest of his position.)

The games are here, with my brief comments on the critical moments of the Caruana-Naiditsch game. Here's what's ahead in round 5:

• Meier (1) - Carlsen (2.5)
• Naiditsch (1) - Bluebaum (1.5)
• Anand (1.5) - Caruana (3)
• Hou Yifan (1) - Vitiugov (3)
• Vachier-Lagrave (3) - Aronian (2.5)