The Reykjavik Open continued with the 5th round. The top is now more crowded with 7 players sharing the first position with 4.5/5: Pavel Eljanov, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Yu Yangyi, Anish Giri, Wesley So, Ivan Cheparinov and Grzegorz Gajewski.

The battle between two of world’s top juniors, Anish Giri and Alexander Ipatov, finished with a win for the Dutch player. Giri, who will turn 19 this year, spent very little time from his clock to beat the Turkish representative. The game started with a Caro-Kann Defense and the players quickly simplified the position. Anish demonstrated his superiority in the endgame, which he handled with precision while almost blitzing the moves. This puts the Nr 1 seed on 4.5/5 points with a lot of chances to claim the first prize.

After the early 18-move draw between Grzegorz Gajewski and Yu Yangyi, there were still two players that could have gotten the coveted fifth straight victory. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave had a slight edge in an endgame against Pavel Eljanov, but was not able to convert it into a full point. The game started with Maxime’s beloved Grunfeld Defense. Eljanov decided to go for some early simplifications, trying to exchange black’s important dark-squared bishop. He managed to do so, however, the resulting endgame was pretty equal. The French GM activated his pieces, but that never seemed to be enough to get the win. The draw was signed on move 36.

Taking advantage of this result, the Bulgarian GM Ivan Cheparinov now joined the leaders after defeating Icelandic GM Stefan Kristjansson with the black pieces on the fourth board.

The last player to join the leaders was Philippine star Wesley So from Webster University. He outplayed Chinese IM Wei Yi in a rook endgame with 4 pawns for each side. It took 75 moves for the Chinese to finally resign the game. Wesley So has a more difficult challenge tomorrow, as he has to face second seeded Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

Leaders after 5 rounds:

1 GM Eljanov Pavel UKR 2678 4.5
2 GM Vachier-Lagrave Maxime FRA 2715 4.5

GM Yu Yangyi CHN 2688 4.5
4 GM Giri Anish NED 2722 4.5
5 GM So Wesley PHI 2684 4.5
6 GM Cheparinov Ivan BUL 2709 4.5
7 GM Gajewski Grzegorz POL 2644 4.5
8 GM Socko Bartosz POL 2643 4.0

GM Baklan Vladimir UKR 2609 4.0
10 GM Shulman Yury USA 2563 4.0
11 GM Stefansson Hannes ISL 2496 4.0
12 IM Li Wenliang CHN 2411 4.0
13 IM Gretarsson Hjorvar Steinn ISL 2509 4.0
14 GM Dziuba Marcin POL 2602 4.0
15 GM Bu Xiangzhi CHN 2675 4.0

GM Jones Gawain C B ENG 2637 4.0
17 GM Grandelius Nils SWE 2566 4.0
18 GM Ding Liren CHN 2709 4.0
19 GM Maze Sebastien FRA 2556 4.0
20 GM Solak Dragan TUR 2603 4.0
21 GM Halkias Stelios GRE 2566 4.0
22 NM Norowitz Yaacov USA 2432 4.0
23 GM Xiu Deshun CHN 2530 4.0
24 GM Danielsen Henrik ISL 2507 4.0
25 FM Jayakumar Adarsh USA 2271 4.0
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
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