2017 Gibraltar Masters - Day 4

At the end of day 4 there are only 2 players left on 100%. GM Emil Sutovsky and GM Wenjun Ju have won all their games, and will meet on Board 1 in tomorrows round. The group on 3.5 contains 14 players, including a number of the higher rated players, including Michael Adams, Hikaru Nakamura and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Not in that group are a couple of other big names (Caruana and Topalov), who have had a couple of draws to go with their 2 wins.
One player recovering from an early loss is Vassily Ivanchuk who won his game today. Unfortunately for Australian fans is was at the expense of IM Bobby Cheng. Cheng played a little loose in the Pirc but it took a nice exchange sacrifice by Ivanchuk to create real winning chances. Annoyingly for Cheng the swiss pairing gods have seen fit to pair him with fellow Australian FM Zachary Loh in round 5.
I've been a little quiet reporting on my own games after my round 2 loss, but I've actually recovered to 1.5/4. I won a pretty straightforward game yesterday (win a pawn, exchange pieces, win another pawn, keep exchanging), while today I had to defend a slightly worse position until a pawn grab in a heavy piece ending encouraged my opponent to force a repetition.


Ivanchuk,Vassily - Cheng,Bobby [B08]
2017 Gibraltar Masters (4), 27.01.2017

1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nf3 d6 4. Be2 Nf6 5. Nc3 O-O 6. O-O a6 7. Bf4 Nc6 8. h3 b5 9. a3 Bb7 10. Re1 Re8 11. d5 Nb8 12. Nd4 c5 13. Nb3 b4 14. axb4 cxb4 15. Na2 Nxe4 16. Bf3 Nc5 17. Nxb4 Nxb3 18. cxb3 Bxb2 19. Nc6 Bxc6 20. dxc6 Bxa1 21. Qxa1 Qc7 22. b4 e5 23. b5 Re7 24. Be3 e4 25. Bh6 Re5 26. Rxe4 Ra7 27. Rxe5 dxe5 28. b6 1-0