Sanan Sjugirov is leading the Casino Barcelona tournament after six rounds. The 19-year-old Russian grandmaster scored a superb 5/6 and is now half a point ahead of Danish grandmaster Peter Heine Nielsen.

Sanan Sjugirov | Photo courtesy of the tournament organizers

The 17th Magistral Ciutat de Barcelona is under way at the Casino of Barcelona in the capital of Catalonia. It is organized by the Catalan Chess Federation under the patronage of the Casino of Barcelona (Group Peralada), the City of Barcelona and the Generalitat of Catalonia. Now that the strong wish of the Catalans to become independent is making headlines again, we might as well call it a Catalan tournament instead of a Spanish one!

This year the Catalan tournament is a 10-player round robin with GM Ivan Sokolov (NED, 2690), GM Peter Heine Nielsen (DEN, 2662), GM Predrag Nikolic (BIH, 2638), GM Sanan Sjugirov (RUS, 2624), GM Yuniesky Quesada Perez (CUB, 2604), GM Levan Aroshidze (GEO, 2560), IM Alvar Alonso Rosell (ESP, 2540), Josep Oms Pallisse, (ESP, 2506), IM Joan Fluvia Poyatos (ESP, 2490) and GM Miguel Munoz Pantoja.

In the first round, in a game between two local heros, a queen sacrifice was noticed, but couldn't be avoided.

PGN string

Peter Heine Nielsen isn't playing many tournaments because of other obligations, most notably as a second to Vishy Anand. The Dane is currently in second place behind Sjugirov. In the first round he crashed through Nikolic's kingside in spectacular fashion:

PGN string

GM Peter Heine Nielsen (DEN, 2662)

Top seed Ivan Sokolov had mixed results so far. He lost two Nimzo-Indians (Rubinstein) with white in a row, but in both games the reason was not the opening. In round 1 he blundered:

PGN string

In round 6 another Spaniard a Catalan IM managed to trap the Dutchman's queen:

PGN string

GM Ivan Sokolov (NED, 2690)

Sanan Sjugirov, a former prodigy from Elista who at 19 has grown into a seasoned Russian GM, is doing very well so far in Barcelona. He still needs to play against Nielsen and Sokolov but still his 5/6 is impressive. He played a nice Volga/Benkö Gambit (via a KID move order) against Nikolic in round 6.

PGN string

GM Sanan Sjugirov (RUS, 2624)

The games start each day at 16:30 CET and can be followed live here.

Casino Barcelona 2012 | Round 6 standings