Report by Steve Giddins

As well as being a former world championship challenger, and one of the very greatest players England has ever produced, Nigel Short has always been noted for his entertaining and witty comments on his games. With just one point from his first four games, Wijk aan Zee 2010 has not been his best start to a major tournament. However, despite his troubles, the English GM continues to uphold his reputation as just about the best provider of quotes to the assembled pack of chess journalists. After scrambling a draw from a thoroughly dubious position against Magnus Carlsen in round four, Nigel explained his choice of 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Nf6 as Black: "The thing was, I suspected he would play the Scottish against an Englishman, so I decided to play the Scandinavian against a Norwegian!” He also raised a further laugh with his response, when asked whether he was satisfied with a draw against the world no. one: “Satisfied? Why should I be satisfied with a draw against a kid? I’m a grandmaster with 25 years of experience!”. As another very quotable chess great, Savielly Tartakower, was wont to say, "Bravo!"

Results of the day

Alexey Shirov continues to make the headlines over the board. Today he won his fifth (!) straight game, the third with Black, after a fascinating battle with van Wely.

To the relief of most spectators, Vladimir Kramnik abandoned his customary Petroff, in favour of the Pirc, in search of his first win of the event. The surprise worked, and Jan Smeets, for whom time-trouble has been his besetting sin this year, was soon a mile behind on the clock, as well as objectively worse on the board.

Of the five draws, the biggest battle of the day was between Nakamura and Carlsen. The latter was under the cosh for much of the game, but eventually salvaged a draw, in an an ending with three pawns for a piece.

In his blog on Arctic Securities Magnus writes: "Today I played H. Nakamura, USA (2708). He is rated as number eight in the tournament, but following his good result in the recent World Championship for National teams in Turkey and his shared second place here after four rounds, I did not expect an easy game. He avoided mainline theory in the opening. I did not have any real problems, but got a bit too optimistic early on and underestimated maybe his ensuing attacking chances. At a critical junction I could have given an exchange for two pawns and an unclear position, but chose instead to give a knight for three pawns. In a fairly equal ending I offered a draw. He somewhat surprisingly declined, but after I had made a few inaccurate moves, he was seriously playing for a win. In the end I found a way to defend and after swapping most pieces and all pawns the game was drawn after five and a half hours. A tough fight. I’ll have the black pieces two rounds in row, facing reigning World Champion V.Anand Thursday."

Nigel Short had a frustrating day, having Ivanchuk firmly on the rack for almost the entire afternoon, but being unable to extract the final surrender. Caruana will be similarly disappointed, having failed to convert what should have been a winning advantage against Dominguez.

Leko-Anand was a fairly quiet draw, whilst Tiviakov-Kariakin saw Black unable to make anything of his early structural superiority.

In the B Group, Anish Giri claimed his third strong GM scalp of the event, by beating Sutovsky in mature fashion, in the ending arising from the Karpov Variation of the Grunfeld.

In the C Group, the equally precocious American talent, 15-year-old Ray Robson, is also putting up a marvellous show, with today's win as Black against Peng Zhaoqin taking his score onto a superb 4.5 / 5.

In his blog on Arctic Securities Magnus writes: "On the free day Wednesday I was invited to play a football match against a Dutch team. Together with GM Kjetil Lie (who is a former 3rd division goal-getter), we played against Van Wely and Smeets, whom I beat in round two and three of the chess tournament. Dutch Television was present and duly documented our short but intense match, ending in a Norwegian 5-1 victory."

"My relation with chess is simple," says Fred Lucas. "I'm a photographer who is very fond of the game, loves the atmosphere at tournaments – it's if you can really feel all the ideas coming up on all those boards – and I love to make pictures, especially with available light. What I like most when photographing chess players is to get their emotions that are otherwise hard to see, because life immediately proceeds to the next moment. Before the start of a game most players are busy with themselves, concentrating and some give you the impression that they really don't want to pay attention to anything else than the game to come."

From Chessbase.com