After both the schedules merged and round 4 was complete there was just one person left alone at the top of the standings. IM Bryan Smith, fresh off his win at King’s Island a couple of weeks ago is ahead of the seven GMs and the rest of the field heading into the final day’s play.
Smith won a hard fought encounter with top seed, GM Leonid Kritz, in round 4.
Position after 45…Qc7
Here Smith, playing white, found the winning 46.Rxf3! exf3 47.Bd3 Kg8 – can you find the killer shot?
Position after 47…Kg8
48.a7!! Qxa7 49.Qh7+ Kf7 50.Bc4+ 1-0 Kritz will lose his queen after a couple more checks.
A fine finish from Smith and a well deserved top spot. Of course he’s going to have to keep it going against the chasing pack of GMs (and others) for the final two rounds.
Talking about the chasing group, just half-point behind Smith are GMs Sergey Erenburg, Giorgi Kacheishvili and Alex Shabalov along with FM Daniel Ludwig. Erenburg and Shabalov split their game in round 3 while Kacheishvili beat FM Oleg Zaikov. Ludwig drew with GM Darmen Sadvakasov after beating GM Ivanov in the previous round to keep up his impressive tournament.
Round 5 sees the top boards as Erenburg vs Smith on board 1 and an all GM match-up on two with Shabalov vs Kacheishvili. Ludwig gets another crack at a GM on board 3, having to face top seed Kritz.