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