Since the leader of the pack, Valery Kazakouski, drew with Black today in a solid game with Dimitri Reinderman, Evgeny Romanov was able to draw even. That wasn’t an easy job for the ex-Russian, as his opponent Rick Lahaye put the squeeze on him initially. However, Romanov unbalanced the Dutchman with a highly original strategic idea and eventually bested him in the endgame.

Behind this duo, who are on 6½ points out of 8 games, we have again the nineteen-year-old Indian Panda Sambit, who crushed his compatriot Dengla Aarav tactically. Of the Dutch, apart from Reinderman and Sergei Tiviakov, who drew his game with the strong young Bulgarian Nikola Kanov, Eelke de Boer is putting in a great performance. Alexander Kovchan was the second grandmaster in a row the twenty-year-old from Groningen defeated.