In India, our Canadian players are now tied with 3.5 each. Roman won his game today, while Shiyam lost leaving both of them at 3.5 out of 7.
Tomorrow they both play Candidate Masters from India. Meanwhile at the top of the heap, IM Alex Rombaldoni (ITA) drew his game to now
have a score of 6.5. Tied for 2nd with 6 are GM Robert Hovhannisyan (ARM), who is paired with the leader tomorrow
and FM (!) Koushik Girish (IND), who has knocked off 3 straight GM's. He plays GM Nils Grandelius (SWE) tomorrow.

The Russian Super-final started yesterday, with the big game being Peter Svidler's upset over Vlad Kramnik. Svidler played an impressive
game with white, and there is some nice analysis at The Week in Chess site. Today's round just finished with Alex Morozevich
defeating Alexander Grischuk, while Svidler was held to a draw by Sergey Karjakin. So Svidler & Morozevich alone in 1st with 1.5.
Kramnik was able to come back today with a win over Artyom Timofeev.

While the Men's Grand Prix series has quietly died, the Women's series has started up again. Hou Yifan (CHN) is putting "her boots" to the field
in Rostov, RUS with a score of 5.5/6. Tied for 2nd with 4 points are Tatiana Kosintseva (RUS) and Kateryna Lahno (UKR).
A total of 12 are participating. The winner of the FIDE 2011/2012 Women's Grand Prix earns a title match in 2013.

A strong Open is taking place in Baku, AZE. After the 4th round earlier today, the only two left with perfect scores are GM's Sergei Zhigalko (BLR) and
Lazaro Bruno Batista (CUB). They meet tomorrow. The top seeded players are all at least a point back: Mamedyarov, Vallejo Pons,
Domniguez Perez, Dreev and Sutovsky - all members of the 2700+ club. I would imagine that a lot of the players are using this as a
tune up for the World Cup, later this month.

 

-FM