Today, with the White pieces, Judit Polgar once again went for complications in the middlegame phase, where she had been crushing her rivals. She tried a speculative piece sacrifice against her opponent, Shak Mamedyarov. A sign that things were not working out was that Polgar was burning her clock at an alarming rate, and Mamedyarov played quickly and comfortably. Judit continued to pitch pawns in an effort to give her attack more steam, but the young Azerbaijan was able to hang on to his extra material, forcing Polgar to resign: she was down a hopeless amount of material and her attacking chances had evaporated. Mamedyarov pulled even with Polgar at 3.5-1.5.In the other game, former FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov won his second game in a row, continuing his trademark pattern of incredible second-half tournament finishes. Without a doubt, he is the very best "closer" in the world right now, gaining strength as the tournament progresses. He defeated Ivan Sokolov, who blundered at the end and is having a nightmare of an event: he only has a half point out of 5 games.
The final round is Saturday, and the tournament could be won clear by Mamedyarov or Polgar if one of them win and the other does not win; Topalov could enter a tie for first if he defeats Polgar and Sokolov defeats Mamedyarov. At this point, the Dutch #1 is playing for pride.
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