Ivan Sokolov leading the field in exciting Gibraltar

The tournament in Gibraltar is extremely exciting this year. After seven rounds, a lot of players still have a good chance to win the tournament, like Milov, Efimenko, Gurevich, Kuzubov, Adams, Akopian, Areshchenko, Sutovsky and Nakamura, who are all shared second with 5,5 points. So far the best player is Ivan Sokolov, who grabbed the sole lead (6 out of 7!) today with his victory against Sulskis. Right before the tournament he was commentating the games at Corus, so perhaps Ivan was inspired by this!

This time four games to replay. In the first one, Korchnoi and Bellin meet. The tournament bulletin reports that 31 years ago, these two gentlemen also played a Stonewall Dutch, in a game in Hastings. Then Korchnoi won brilliantly and finally Bellin got his revenge! Nakamura-Ramesh is just a nice game, Efimenko-Adams is the defeat of the big tournament favourite and Sokolov-Sulskis is the most important result of today.

>> related article: “Early upsets in Gibraltar”