R Vaishali continued her impressive performance at Norway Chess, securing another victory to extend her lead at the top of the women’s leaderboard by 2.5 points. She won her round 4 match against Pia Cramling.
Conversely, Praggnanandhaa lost his round 4 match to Hikaru Nakamura, dropping to third place in the open section leaderboard. Nakamura now leads with 7.5 points.
Pragg struggled in his game, with an accuracy of less than 90 percent. A critical mistake on move 22 with his knight turned the match in Nakamura’s favor.
In other matches, Magnus Carlsen returned to form with a decisive victory over Fabiano Caruana of the USA, playing with the black pieces. Carlsen had previously lost his third round match to Pragg.
In contrast, reigning world champion Ding Liren of China suffered another defeat, this time to Alireza Firouzja of France, and remains at the bottom of the leaderboard with just 2.5 points.
Vaishali’s success continued with her second win of the tournament, solidifying her lead at the top. She delivered an outstanding performance against Pia Cramling of Sweden with the black pieces, achieving an accuracy of 99.5 percent over 54 moves to secure the win. Vaishali now has a total of 8.5 points and maintains a comfortable 2.5-point lead.
Meanwhile, Koneru Humpy’s struggles persisted as she lost another match. Anna Muzychuk of Ukraine capitalized on Humpy’s end-game mistakes to win with the black pieces.
