And here we go for the 6th round of the Serbia Chess Open! In the Masters tournament, 5 players were at 4.5 points out of 5 and played together on the first three boards. The performance of the day was clearly that of the Greek international master Ioannidis Evgenios (2459 Elo) who beat with black pieces the Indian grandmaster Adhiban B. (2616 Elo).

In a Sicilian Najdorf 6.Bg5, Adhiban B. quickly sacrificed a piece in exchange for several pawns and also to prevent the opponent's king from castling. The queens eventually got exchanged which secured the black king, but Adhiban B. still had three dangerous passed pawns on the queenside which he tried to promote.

Adhiban-Ioannidis
Position after 35…Rb6

In this position, Adhiban B. could maintain the status quo but forced it too much with 36.Nd6? Black cannot immediately play 36...Rxc6 because of 37.Kb5 and both Black rooks are attacked, but Ioannidis has found the resource 36...Nc7! and the c6-pawn is now hanging. That’s why Adhiban B. played 37.Kc5 to defend the c6-pawn but after 37...Raa6 the c6-pawn was attacked again. Adhiban B. played 38.b5 but there is 38...Nxb5! and 39.Nxb5 is impossible because there is 39...Rxc6# checkmate!

Adhiban B. lost today against Ioannidis.

An exceptional performance from the Greek player who now has a performance of 2866 Elo (more than Carlsen's Elo!) and which brings him a little closer to the grandmaster norm. 

Ioannidis is now alone at the top of the tournament with 5.5 points out of 6 followed by 5 players at 5 points out of 6. 

The pairings of the leaders for the Masters tournament are as follows:

As for the Amateurs tournament, the two leaders with 5 points out of 5 who are Shoshin Kirill (1938 Elo) and the Indian candidate master Aaditya Dhingra (1965 Elo) have drawn. So we see a grouping of three players at the top of the tournament at 5.5 points out of 6 since the two previous players are now accompanied by the Singaporean player Teo Hong Ming (1850 Elo) who won today. Shoshin and Teo will face each other tomorrow while Aaditya will be paired with Turkish FIDE master Kilic who has 5 points. 

Don't miss the start of the games tomorrow, round 4 at 4pm! 

You can follow the games live on all the major online chess platforms, here are the links below: 

https://live.chessbase.com/en/watch/2nd-Serbia-Open-Masters-2022/ 

https://live.followchess.com/#!serbia-open-masters-2022 

https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tournaments/serbia-chess-open-2022-masters/1/1/1 

https://www.chess.com/events/2022-serbia-chess-open 

https://lichess.org/broadcast/serbian-open-2022-masters/round-1/Oh7R8Qaa