Ukraine’s Vasily Ivanchuk took the lead after round four of the Tata Steel Masters Chess Tournament, in a tough competition which boasts the male and female world champions and the world’s number two chess player. Ivanchuk scored three wins and a draw from his four games, beating Ba Jobava, Loek Van Wely and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and drawing with Teimour Radjabov. Ivanchuk outplayed Vachier-Lagrave in the Najdorf variation off the Sicilian Defence of which Vachier-Lagrave, is considered an expert.
Fourteen of the world’s finest players are participating in the single round robin Tata Steel Masters. In a single round robin system, each competitor opposes everyone else in turns. Victories are difficult to achieve because the games are contested at a very high standard. Magnus Carlsen is still regarded as the favourite to win the 2015 Tata Steel, although he was defeated by Poland’s Radoslaw Wojtaszek, and picked up his first win in the fourth round. There are nine games yet remaining to be played. Hou Yifan is yet to score a win in the tournament. However, her Chinese colleague Ding Liren seems to be on a roll as he scored three extraordinary victories, one after another, against Radjabov, Yifan and Jobava following a loss to Italy’s Fabio Caruana. Liren is placed third on the tournament table.
Meanwhile, aficionados worldwide are patiently awaiting the winner of the coveted 2015 Tata Steel Brilliancy Prize. In 1975, the organizers of Tata Steel introduced a
