Niemann and Abdusattorov lead the Tata Steel Masters with 3/4 - 4
0
10
There were three winners in round four of the Tata Steel Masters
in Wijk aan Zee. Hans Moke Niemann defeated Chithambaram
Aravindh with the black pieces, he steadily outplayed
his opponent after the inferior 14.f5?!
Nodirbek Abdusattorov defeated Thai Dai Van
Nguyen in a Petroff where he gradually outplayed
his opponent, the computer didn't like a couple of
moves 33.fxe3 and especially 34.e4 but this didn't
seem obvious to the players even after the game.
Thus far Matthias Bluebaum had avoided the curse
of the Candidates players but two serious mistakes against Javokhir Sindarov 17.Nxa4?
(going from edge to equal) and 24.Qc5? (24.Qd7!)
which lost to a slightly funky tactic, lost him the game.
The remaining games were drawn. Summary below. There are two games annotated by Michiel Abeln in the game file, the rest I've annotated using Stockfish.
Round 4 Standings: 1st= Niemann, Abdusattorov 3pts, 3rd= Sindarov, Van Foreest, Erigaisi 2.5pts 6th= Erdogmus, Gukesh, Fedoseev, Bluebaum 2pts, 10th= Aravindh, Keymer, Nguyen 1.5pts, 13th= Praggnanandhaa, Giri 1pt.
Round 5 pairings: Niemann-Abdusattorov, Keymer-Aravindh, Sindarov-Erdogmus, Van Foreest-Bluebaum, Erigaisi-Fedoseev, Praggnanandhaa-Giri, Nguyen-Gukesh.