Andrei Volokitin is leading the Ukrainian Championship in Kiev after six rounds of play. The 26-year-old grandmaster from Lviv started the tournament with the excellent score of 5/6 and a 2929 performance. Anton Korobov is in second place, a full point behind the leader while Pavel Eljanov and Ruslan Ponomariov are to be found further down the leatherboard.

A good start for Andrei Volokitin | Photo © Ukrainian Championship on Facebook

The Ukrainian Championship is being held from July 27th till August 7th, 2012 in the President Hotel in Kiev. Ukraine is #2 on the FIDE top countries list which means that the national championship must be quite strong! And indeed, even without top rated player Vassily Ivanchuk there are still three 2700 players and eight above 2600: Ruslan Ponomariov (2726), Alexander Moiseenko (2706), Andrei Volokitin (2704), Zahar Efimenko (2694), Pavel Eljanov (2693), Alexander Areshchenko (2691), Anton Korobov (2683), Evgenij Miroshnichenko (2632), Sergey Fedorchuk (2630), Yuriy Kuzubov (2629), Alexander Zubov (2621) and Yuri Vovk (2584).

The first Championship of Ukraine was held in 1924, also in Kiev, and the winner was Jacob Wilner from Odessa. Former champions include Bannik (who won the title five times, a record), Boleslavsky, Geller, Alburt, Malaniuk, Sokolsky, Lipnitsky, Stein, Lerner and Kuzmin.

Players arrived in Ukraine's capital on Thurday, July 26th for the opening ceremony and drawing of lots. The first round was held on July 27th, and today (August 2nd) is the first and only rest day, so a good time to discuss what's happened so far.

Andrei Volokitin is having a splendid tournament so far. We hadn't heard much about the 26-year-old grandmaster for a while until he won the Donostia-San Sebastian Chess Festival at the start of 2012. Now he's doing well in Kiev, having already beaten pre-tournament favorites Ruslan Ponomariov and Pavel Eljanov!

Volokitin started with a "dream Grünfeld" in the first round, ending up with an extra pawn on the queenside and then also playing a textbook breakthrough on the kingside.

PGN string

His game against Ponomariov in round 5 was impressive as well.

PGN string

The tournament is a round robin of 11 rounds so 5 more rounds will be played from August 3rd till 7th. In the remaining rounds Volokitin will face Areshchenko, Efimenko, Fedorchuk, Kuzubov and Miroshnichenko.

Ukrainian Championship 2012 | Round 6 standings