Day 4 of the 2023 World Rapid and Blitz turned out to be pretty wild. The big news story was the game between Nepomniachtchi and Dubov in Round 13. They agreed to a draw after dancing their knights around the board for 12 moves, reaching the starting position (with the knights have swapped starting squares). The Fairplay team immediately alerted the Chief Arbiter, who scored the game 0-0. An appeal was lodged, but at 2:15 am it was rejected.
There was another appeal earlier in the tournament, around whether a clock was pressed, or whether it was faulty. This took an hour to resolve, throwing out the schedule considerably. And finally there was a technical issue with the pairings in the later rounds, resulting incorrect results being recorded on some lower boards (NB This was my responsibility as the tournament pairings officer to avoid, which I did not, and fix, which I did).
There was even some chess, with the day ending with 6 players tied for 1st on 9/12. Day 5 sees 9 rounds played in the Open (and 8 in the Women's), so an eventual winner may take some time to determine.
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