GM Magnus Carlsen scored a smooth win over GM Arjun Erigaisi in round four of Norway Chess 2025 to take the sole lead after GM Fabiano Caruana missed a classical win over GM Gukesh Dommaraju. The relieved world champion stormed to an armageddon win on his birthday, while GM Wei Yi also beat GM Hikaru Nakamura in armageddon, meaning he’d defeated the world numbers one and two on consecutive days.
Although they both lost their armageddon games (against GMs Ju Wenjun and Vaishali Rameshbabu respectively), GMs Koneru Humpy and Anna Muzychuk still lead Women’s Norway Chess 2025. After resilient defense, IM Sara Khadem took advantage of GM Lei Tingjie’s blunder to score the only classical win of the day and her first win of the tournament.
This is a flash report—come back later for player quotes and analysis!
Round five starts Saturday, May 31, at 11 a.m. ET / 17:00 CEST / 8:30 p.m. IST.
Norway Chess Round 4 Results
Carlsen and Khadem were the only players to pick up a full three points for classical wins in round four, while Gukesh, Wei, Ju, and Vaishali got 1.5 points for winning in armageddon.
Open
After two frustrating days of classical misses and armageddon losses, Carlsen has taken the sole lead by defeating Arjun.
Norway Chess Standings After Round 4
Our Game of the Day was Carlsen’s smooth victory over the world number-three.
After 2 frustrating days, @MagnusCarlsen scores a smooth win over Arjun Erigaisi to take the #NorwayChess lead! pic.twitter.com/3b53Zih0ho
— chess24 (@chess24com) May 29, 2025
GM Rafael Leitao will analyze the game below:
Women
Humpy and Muzychuk have slowed a tiny bit with losses, but they’re still in the lead by a point and a half. Khadem has risen to fourth place with the coveted three-point win.
Norway Chess Women’s Standings After Round 4
NM Anthony Levin contributed to this report.
The standout pairing on Saturday after the rest day will be Caruana vs. Carlsen, a 2018 world championship rematch, as well as a matchup between the numbers one and two in Stavanger.
How to watch?
Norway Chess 2025 features Open and Women’s six-player tournaments for equal prize funds of 1,690,000 NOK (~$167,000). It runs May 26 to June 6 in Stavanger, with players facing their opponents twice at classical chess (120 minutes/40 moves, with a 10-second increment from move 41). The winner of a classical game gets three points, the loser, zero; after a draw, the players get one point and fight for another half-point in armageddon (10 minutes for White, seven for Black, who has draw odds).
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