FIDE World Cup R4.1: Goryachkina, Harikrishna Among 10 Players In Danger Zone

The top seed of the Women's FIDE World Cup GM Aleksandra Goryachkina is in a must-win situation vs. GM Antoaneta Stefanova after blundering in the first game of round four. GM Nana Dzadnidze also started with a loss against IM Polina Shuvalova, while all other games ended in draws in the women's section.

In the open section, eight of 16 games ended decisively, with GM Amin Tabatabaei scoring an upset victory over GM Pentala Harikrishna. GM Magnus Carlsen played his first draw of the tournament against GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek.

The #FIDEWorldCup is held at the picturesque mountain part of Sochi, and the players are residing next to ski resorts. No wonder hiking is one of the prime free time activities for many of them, like Adhiban Baskaran and Dina Belenkaya here, playing chess at the top of the world! pic.twitter.com/PgwH5D1ODU

— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) July 22, 2021

Four players will have the difficult task to win on demand with the black pieces on Friday, after losing as White in the first game of round four. They include the two Uzbek GMs left in the field, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who lost to Azerbaijani GM Vasif Durarbayli, and GM Javokhir Sindarov, who got tricked by GM Poland's Kacper Piorun:

One of the two American grandmasters left in Sochi is also in trouble. The 20-year-old GM Jeffery Xiong, who made it all the way to the quarterfinals in the previous World Cup, lost his white game to GM Vidit Gujrathi. The situation became quite tricky in time trouble for Xiong:

Quite unexpectedly, the other U.S. grandmaster, GM Sam Shankland, was one of the four players to win his black game. GM Rinat Jumabayev, who had eliminated GM Fabiano Caruana in the round before, had Shankland with his back against the wall after "move-ordering" him into a Maroczy Bind position. When the Kazakhstani GM won a pawn on move 36, it looked like he would win soon.

"I wasn't supposed to win it," said Shankland, who found some great maneuvers and successfully blocked his opponent's passed pawn until Jumabayev couldn't really make progress anymore. He tried anyway, pushed too hard, got into a slightly worse endgame, and then failed to hold that:

Someone who has spent most of his time as a trainer/coach in recent years keeps reminding us of the strong player that he still is. The now 38-year-old GM Etienne Bacrot played quite well in the rapid part of the Paris Grand Chess Tour event last month and is now a draw away from reaching the final 16 in the World Cup. His win over the Russian GM Pavel Ponkratov is the best game of the day.

Tabatabaei surprisingly knocked out GM Yu Yangyi in the previous round, and he might do the same to Harikrishna. The game looked pretty equal for a long time, but when the Indian GM decided to trade even more pieces, the knight endgame turned out to be trickier than he thought:

Carlsen was the only player in the tournament to start with four wins, but his 100-percent score is now gone after an interesting draw with Wojtaszek where the world champion might have missed a chance to be 5/5.

Four years ago at the World Cup in Tbilisi, Carlsen also started with four wins but then was eliminated, losing his white game and drawing as Black, so he might have some demons to kill here.

"I just thought I would play aggressive because I thought against Magnus, if you play a normal game, it will not give you much success, I guess, so that was sort of the plan," said Wojtaszek. The Polish GM wasn't sure what was happening in the middlegame and felt the same about the final position, where he accepted a rare draw offer from Carlsen: "On the one hand, I thought I am better but on the other hand, I thought it's not simple not to blunder anything." 

Results round 4

The women's tournament had a rather peaceful day with six of eight games ending in draws. Top seed Goryachkina, who had won her first two matches without needing a tiebreak, unexpectedly suffered her first loss vs. former women's world champion Stefanova after spoiling a promising position and then miscalculating badly.

An interesting side story is that Stefanova is also a politician in Bulgaria. As a member of the anti-elite party "There Is Such a People," she was elected for the second time as a Member of Parliament and was lucky to be able to attend the first online session of the new parliament as it took place during the rest day in Sochi.

The next day, Stefanova perfectly refuted Goryachkina's mishap:

Like in the previous round, Dzagnidze started with a loss, this time to the vice-champion of Russian women, Shuvalova.

The 17-year-old IM Bibisara Assaubayeva has chances to knock out a third GM in a row after comfortably drawing her black game with GM Kateryna Lagno where she used the Poisoned Pawn Najdorf:

Results round 4

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: 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