With a quick draw, GM Alireza Firouzja maintained his sole lead at the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss in Riga on Saturday. Russian GM Evgeniy Najer was close to catching Firouzja but missed a win in the endgame against GM Ivan Saric. China’s GM Lei Tingjie grabbed the sole lead in the FIDE Chess.com Women’s Grand Swiss thanks to a win vs. Russian Women’s Champion GM Valentina Gunina.

The fourth round in Riga started with some players perhaps getting a bit less sleep than they would have liked. At 1 a.m., a fire alarm went off in the hotel that sent everyone downstairs where it was quickly announced that it was a false alarm as one of the guests had a shower malfunction.

Whether related to the incident or not, the top boards saw more draws than ever before in this round. They included the American contest between GM Dariusz Swiercz and GM Fabiano Caruana, and also GM Levon Aronian failed to beat his younger compatriot, GM Robert Hovhannisyan.

It was Najer who, after playing a good game with the white pieces, spoiled a golden opportunity to catch Firouzja. His control over the h-file didn’t seem that big of a deal with the queens off the board, but he found some nice tactics to build up a winning position, only to miss a key tactic: 

GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave joined the big group on 3/4 as he defeated GM Anton Demchenko. It helped that the French GM is a bit of a night owl; he hadn’t gone to bed yet when the fire alarm went off.

The win came without too much effort, partly because he had prepared for the 3…g6 Ruy Lopez. “Anton was playing a lot of different sidelines in the Ruy Lopez, and this was one of them,” said Vachier-Lagrave. “I was actually looking at it right before going to the game.”

White was already doing very well after 18.e6, and a star move was 20.Re4!, after which Black’s position is beyond repair.

Another nice win with the white pieces was scored by GM Jorden van Foreest. Also here, the theme was the weakened b1-h7 diagonal and in this case, the Dutchman could give up an exchange for it.

Afterward, Van Foreest kindly joined the studio to show the highlights of the game for the live broadcast. He pointed out that it was his first Grand Swiss win ever after two draws and a loss in this tournament and 11 draws two years ago!

The 17-year-old Danish GM Jonas Bjerre, one of the youngest participants in this tournament, also joined the broadcast for an interview after scoring a big win with the white pieces.

“It was a really nice game. He’s probably the highest rated player I’ve ever won against,” Bjerre (2569) said after he defeated GM Baskaran Adhiban (2672). It seems the Indian GM mixed up his lines in the opening as he got under pressure early.

After missing a smothered mate the other day, GM Aryan Tari did beat a higher-rated player the next day. The Norwegian GM won a good game against Iran’s GM Parham Maghsoodloo:

It was a good day for the Nordic countries as Swedish GM Nils Grandelius also won his game, against GM Baadur Jobava.

“It was incredibly messy the whole game,” Grandelius said afterward. “I’m just trying to get some grip of what happened, but it’s difficult to say.”

As always, Jobava played creatively in the opening and took some big risks as his king had to stay in the center. Grandelius, on his turn, sacrificed a few pawns for the initiative.

“I think we both had the feeling that it must be very promising for me, and I thought I was more or less going to win in 15 or 20 moves, but then he started to defend incredibly well,” said Grandelius. 

After most of the defensive work had been done, Jobava blundered at the end:

Although GM Alexei Shirov is back to representing Spain these days, his game with GM Arturs Neiksans very much felt like a Latvian contest. Shirov won with a lovely exchange sacrifice in the endgame:

GM Aleksandra Goryachkina, the only female player in the open section, was close to scoring her first win, but GM Hans Niemann eventually got away with a draw. Here’s the game and an image of our newly launched Game Review feature:

In round five, the top pairings are Firouzja-Vachier-Lagrave (!), Tari-Yu, Ponkratov-Sevian, Saric-Shirov, Hovhannisyan-Najer, and Petrosyan-Sarin.

Round 4 Standings (Top 21)

(Full standings here.)

The women’s tournament was also somewhat peaceful on the top boards, with four out of the top five games ending in draws. This way, Lei’s win vs. Gunina was enough for the Chinese GM, who is playing her first classical OTB event since Gibraltar 2020, to move to sole first place.

The game was tough and tiring for Lei, who said she had difficulty thinking about it afterward. With careful maneuvering, she had gained an overwhelming advantage during the middlegame and, after avoiding many pitfalls, she reached an endgame three pawns up that was still not so easy to win.

Former women’s world champion and director of Russian content for Chess.com GM Alexandra Kosteniuk is one of the 10 players trailing Lei by half a point. She beat the talented IM Bibisara Assaubayeva, whose combination of …g6 and …e6 in the opening probably wasn’t a good idea. “She is kind of weakening too much,” said Kosteniuk.

Round 4 Women Standings (Top 20)

(Full standings here.)

In round five, the top pairings are Dzagnidze-Lei, Batsiashvili-Kosteniuk, Dronavalli-Pogonina, Kashlinskaya-Zhu, Javakhishvili-Paehtz, and Zawadzka-Saduakassova.

You can find all games of the tournament here for replay and download: FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss | FIDE Chess.com Women’s Grand Swiss.

The FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss and Women’s Grand Swiss take place October 27-November 7, 2021 in Riga, Latvia. The format is an 11-round Swiss. The time control for the open group is 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 50 minutes for the next 20 moves, and finally 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment starting from move one. For the women, it’s 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment starting on move one. The top two finishers in the open and the winner among the women will qualify for their respective 2022 candidates tournaments.

Earlier reports: