Bryne, Norway: Fresh from a brilliant victory against Bulgarian Veselin Topalov, world champion Vishwanathan Anand will next take on Hikaru Nakamura of United States in the fourth round of Norway chess 2013 Super Tournament.
The three rounds for Anand have been contrasting so far.
It was a sedate start with an easy draw as white against Levon Aronian of Armenia and then kind of a moral victory when Anand gave away nothing to his world championship challenger Magnus Carlsen of Norway and drew again.
The third-round win against Topalov is sure to find its way in the history books of the future as Anand played one of his best games in recent times.
Contrary to what the pundits had expected, Sergey Karjakin of Russia is running away from everyone else. It is hard to find an instance in the recent past when someone has started off with three victories in as many games in a super tournament and the Russian has done exactly that.
With his 100 per cent score, Karjakin is ahead of Anand and Aronian by a full point but it's still early days. In high level tournaments like these, well begun remains half done but the other half is always tougher.
Two of Karjakin's three wins have come against Wang Hao of China and Jon Ludvig Hammer of Norway who both are the last two placed contestants right now.
A real surprise has been world number one Carlsen who is yet to taste his first victory in the tournament. With three draws, the Norwegian super star shares the fourth spot along with Nakamura, Peter Svidler of Russia and Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan.
Topalov and Wang Hao share the eighth spot with one point each while Hammer is yet to open his account. The fourth round is expected to be interesting as Carlsen will look to avenge his defeat at the hands of Svidler in the final round of the Candidates tournament in London recently.
It was a nail-biting moment as Carlsen and Vladimir Kramnik were locked at the same score going in to the last round to earn the right to challenge Anand in the next World Championship.
While Carlsen lost to Svidler, Kramnik went down to Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine paving way for the Norwegian to qualify with his better tiebreak score.
In other fourth-round games, Aronian will take on Karjakin in what might be the first stern test for the Ukrainian-turned-Russian, Wang Hao will meet Radjabov and Hammer will hope for a reversal of fortunes against Topalov.
Pairings round 4:
V Anand (Ind, 2) v/s Hikaru Nakamura (Usa, 1.5): Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 1.5) v/s Peter Svidler (Rus, 1.5); Wang Hao (Chn, 1) v/s Teimour Radjabov (Aze, 1.5); Veselin Topalov (Bul, 1) v/s Jon Ludvig Hammer (Nor, 0); Levon Aronian (Arm, 2) v/s Sergey Karjakin (Rus, 3).
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