HOT!
One word is enough to describe the situation at MCC today ... and definitely less than ideal conditions for quality chess, but the players persisted never-the-less!
The appropriate song for today's games comes from New York hip-hop group Mobb Deep:
When it came to the survival of the fittest, the two FMs showed why they are the top seeds in this field, with Michael Baron escaping in a close encounter with David Beaumont in round 4, before quickly disposing of Mario Palma quickly in round 5. Patrick Scharrer was perhaps more impressive, with two grinding wins over Rad Chmiel in round 4 and Carl Gorka in round 5. Their clash tomorrow morning should make for an interesting game, which will obviously have a significant bearing on the final result of the tournament.
There were also a few games that went over four hours today, which is quite astonishing in the heat! Gary Bekker had worked his way towards a winning position, but saw ghosts in the position, and allowed Jack Puccini to exchange into a drawish, but tricky ending, which finally concluded just before the second round was scheduled to start! Ruben Nowak was the marathon man in the afternoon game, capitalising on Rad Chmiel's error late in the game to finally grind out a win (in about 115 moves!) just after 8pm.
There were also a few upset results during the day, with Mario Palma beating Ari Dale & Jason Chew defeating Anthony Harris in the morning round, while Max Chew Lee beat David Beaumont in the afternoon round.
As usual, results & pairings are available on chesschat.
To conclude, here is Carl Gorka's round 4 win over Sylvester Urban.
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