The fourth round of the Kortchnoi Master Tournament rather extended the leaders' group than to decrease it. The games on the top boards were drawn, while Eltaj Safarli joined the top of the field with a win over GM Milos Pavlovic. Before the 5th round, there are six players with 3,5 out of 4 ahead of the pack with no less than 14 players having 3 points. Alexei Shirov again missed to catch up after allowing another draw, this time against the German IM Klaus Klundt.

Today's 5th round will have the following encounters:

 Bo. No.   Name Rtg Pts. Result Pts.   Name Rtg No.
1 10 GM Bauer Christian 2619   GM Safarli Eltaj 2680 2
2 4 GM Rakhmanov Aleksandr 2665   GM Tregubov Pavel V. 2579 13
3 6 GM Berkes Ferenc 2648   GM Ivanisevic Ivan 2633 9


In the Main Tournament, only two players are left with a clean score so far: Gustavo Zaldivar and Heinz Vifian and, of course, they will be paired in round 5 to set the course for the possible winner of this section. But the pack is not far off; four players are only half a point away and only waiting for the leaders to slip.

 Bo No. Name Rtg Pts. Result Pts. Name Rtg No.
1 29 Zaldivar Gustavo 1859 4   4 Vifian Heinz 1886 19
2 4 Hirt Markus 1972   Ly Nguyen 1869 26
3 13 Studer Vital 1916   Schneider Marcel 1945 7
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