Sergei Karjakin, Fabiano Caruana and Zahar Efimenko are sharing the lead after four rounds at the Karpov tournament in Poikovsky. The 12th edition is a quiet one so far, with a drawing percentage of no less than 80%. The event is a 10-player round-robin with Dmitry Jakovenko, Etienne Bacrot, Viktor Laznicka, Alexander Motylev, Lazara Bruzon, Sergei Rublevsky and Alexander Onischuk also playing.

The tournament in Poikovsky, named after 12th World Champion Anatoly Karpov, usually takes place in June, but this year it was postponed to October 4-13. The 12th edition went back to 10 participants (last year there were 12). This year the rest day is on Sunday the 9th, just like in Bilbao.

Poikovsky is located in the Nefteyugansk region of the Khanty-Mansiysk autonomous area. It's about 150km eastern of Khanty-Mansiysk. Its name comes from the nearby river Poyka. The population is close to 30,000 people and the main economic drive is the extraction of oil and gas.

Twelve years ago local authorities decided that a big chess tournament would do the region well. A year later a chess school for children was opened, like the tournament named after Anatoly Karpov. Last year the chess school celebrated its 10th anniversary on June 1st, International Children's Day.

After four rounds, sixteen of the twenty games have ended in a draw and you don't need to be Einstein to see that this comes down to a drawing percentage of 80%. It's probably a good reflection of the situation: ten strong grandmasters with little difference in strength, all well prepared and all having quite a solid playing style. We've heard it from many pros already: chess simply has a high drawing tendency at the highest level.

The first round actually saw two decisive games. Fabiano Caruana beat Dmitry Jakovenko from a Closed Ruy Lopez.

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Viktor Laznicka overstretched a bit in an Open Catalan, but it was Lazaro Bruzon who went down in the fight.

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The other two decisive games were played in the third round. Top seed Sergei Karjakin, who apparently preferred this event over the Grand Slam Masters Final, scored a win with the white pieces. In a well-known, sharp line of the Caro-Kann Advance the Moscovite played a novelty on move 13, and five moves Laznicka erred.

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Zahar Efimenko won against Alexander Motylev, using a nice little trick.

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Games rounds 1-4