Round 4. Tie-Breaks
Rope-walkers... (09.12.2000)

Only four Russian grandmasters continue their struggle at the KO Championships: Khalifman, Bareev, Grischuk and Kovalevskaya. Kovalevskaya advanced to the women’s semi-final. The main event of the men’s fifth round will be the meeting between Khalifman and Anand. Anand’s luck helped him many times, but this situation cannot last forever… Moscow players Bareev and Grischuk can hope for good results. Kasparov’s prognosis came true almost fully: Grischuk is the only participant of round one who still plays at the championship. Shirov plays at such a high stage for the first time. Tkachiev is a dark horse but he proves to be a tough guy who prefers blitz and rapid chess to long meditations. Topalov wronged the victory on the last minutes: Dreev exposed a piece to his attack and lost immediately. Svidler was defeated by Adams who had been already among four best players once, so his present success is hardly a sensation. This way seven European players have gathered against one Asian, Anand. There is no way to guess the result, but one thing is absolutely clear: the FIDE World Champion is quite legitimate, only true leaders of the world chess can go up the steep ladder of the rounds as far. In our opinion KO Championships are very interesting. Besides, they are preferable for those grandmasters who have no chance to be invited in Linares, Sarajevo, etc. Why should this formula be changed since FIDE can organise such a representative event annually? We are looking forward to quarter-final results. As for the Women’s Championship, we support Kovalevskaya, nobody else presents Russia there. Skripchenko-Lautier performed very convincingly in previous rounds but was defeated twice by Maric. Now there are two Chinese players in the semi-final, one Yugoslavian and one from Russia.