Round 4 of the FIDE World Championship was played today between the reigning champion, GM Magnus Carlsen and his challenger, GM Ian Nepomniachtchi.

(title image - FIDE / Niki Riga)

Lichess is providing a broadcast of the moves being played in real-time. Additionally, GM Nijat Abasov is providing game annotations and insights on the games daily. Round four’s game annotations can be found below.

Carlsen, celebrating his 31st birthday today, had the white pieces and opened the game with 1. e4. The Russian challenger, Nepomniachtchi chose to meet it with the Petrov (also known as the Russian Defence). As GM Nijat Abasov writes in the game annotations below, it seems likely Nepomniachtchi combined the best preparation of Caruana - recalling that Caruana paralysed Carlsen’s 1. e4 with two Petrovs back in 2018 (game 6 and game 11)

https://lichess.org/study/RoBvWqfx/JDlmzvy9
Generally, similar to the other games so far, both players were deeply prepared and struggled to make significant progress against each other. Neither player made any significant errors, and consequently there were hardly any finger-holds from which to extract a better position.

Going into what was evaluated as a drawn middlegame, Carlsen teased a repetition. A few tries were made, but Nepomniachtchi couldn’t be fooled - and threefold occurred. Consequently, the game was drawn on move 33 - the shortest game of the match so far.

The next game will be played tomorrow, 1st December 12:30 UTC. For more details on the tournament, you can review our first round recap which has more information.

(GM Nijat Abasov achieved the GM title at just 15. He was Azeri national champion in 2017, also winning the Baku Open the same year. He has played the Tata Steel Challengers and the Grand Swiss (twice), amongst many other tournaments, reaching his all-time peak rating of 2670 in February 2020. He recently represented Azerbaijan at the European Team Championships, winning a board prize with a performance rating of 2760).