As per the title of a book by Andras Adorjan, “Black is OK!”. And Black was much more than just OK during yesterday’s 4th round of the Reykjavik Open, as the players leading the black pieces scored no less than 9.5 points from the top 12 boards!
From the 7 top pairings of leaders on 3/3, Black even managed to score an amazing 6.5/7. The only player to be able to hold a draw with the white pieces was Nico Georgiadis, who was facing Erwin l’Ami. A little further down the table Jon Viktor Gunnarsson continued his impressive run as he overcame Gawain Jones with the black pieces, a feat which constituted the main upset of the round.
One of yesterday’s highlights was David Navara joining us in the live show to share his thoughts on his game, as well as telling us about his time in Iceland and his life in general. In case you missed it, you can watch his highly entertaining and instructive intervention here: http://new.livestream.com/chess/reykjavikopen2015
So after 4 rounds there are only 6 players left on the maximum score of 4/4 and they will be facing each other in today’s clashes. On board 1 Mamedyarov will face Gretarsson with the white pieces, on board 2 Eljanov will be opposed to Stopa, while on board 3 Fier will battle it out against Gao.
Today’s 5th round will start at 3pm GMT and you can watch the live games here http://www.reykjavikopen.com/live-games/ and live commentary here http://www.chess.com/tv !
You can also find all the pictures from the tournament on the official Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ReykjavikOpenChess/photos_stream?tab=photos_albums
Fiona Steil-Antoni
