After a couple of weeks after round 3, on Monday 8 October round 4 was played in the Hong Kong Open 2012 at Queen Elisabeth Stadium. The round started a little later than 6.30pm due to missing boards, but it went on smoothly after that.

Seth Levine, the rank leader after 3 rounds, saw his position deteriorate against Luen-Wah Luk quickly and had to admit defeat rather soon.

Billy Lo’s loss to C.K. Yeung and the win of David Garceran Nieuwenburg against Sydney Lai (in a Veresov (against) French with Nf6), couples David now to C.K., both with 3.5 points at the top of the table, to a match next week in round 5.

Alberto Muniz put his white pieces such that Brian Shin on the black side had no more good moves left despite the board being full with pieces. Alberto’s 3rd straight win keeps him at a 100% score and he will meet Seth and the young talent Michael Yang, who also scored his 3rd win, will meet the unbeaten Leun-Wah in round 5.

From the bottom we see two forces emerge, both Ian Scott, who missed the first 2 rounds, and Peter Whalley, who was rusty the first 2 rounds, are gradually moving up to where they belong … but in round 5 they will meet each other first …