It's Potkin on 6/7 leading the way

The current leader Vladimir Potkin, and last year's champion Ian Nepomniachtchi together just before today's game. Just about all the leading group drew as, the target of qualifying for the next World Championship is making those well-placed fairly cautious.

Twenty-three players will qualify, but there can only be one champion!

Vladimir Potkin stays ahead, but those in the chasing group will probably be needing 2½ out of 4, to be sure of being in the top twenty.

Here are the results from the top twenty boards.

Board	Seed	Title/Name	Country	Rating	Points	-	Seed	Title/Name	Country	Rating	Points
1	43	GM Potkin Vladimir	RUS	2653	5½	½-½	21	GM Volokitin Andrei	UKR	2677	5
2	9	GM Vallejo Pons Francisco	ESP	2707	5	½-½	59	GM Iordachescu Viorel	MDA	2626	5
3	17	GM Zhigalko Sergei	BLR	2680	5	½-½	60	GM Lupulescu Constantin	ROU	2626	5
4	55	GM Khairullin Ildar	RUS	2634	5	½-½	27	GM Nisipeanu Liviu-Dieter	ROU	2673	5
5	73	GM Ragger Markus	AUT	2614	5	½-½	33	GM Cheparinov Ivan	BUL	2664	5
6	79	GM Hammer Jon Ludvig	NOR	2606	5	½-½	36	GM Khismatullin Denis	RUS	2662	5
7	87	GM Parligras Mircea-Emilian	ROU	2598	5	½-½	40	GM Feller Sebastien	FRA	2657	5
8	4	GM Vitiugov Nikita	RUS	2720	4½	1-0	170	IM Wirig Anthony	FRA	2480	5
9	7	GM Wojtaszek Radoslaw	POL	2711	4½	1-0	56	GM Hracek Zbynek	CZE	2631	4½
10	58	GM Safarli Eltaj	AZE	2628	4½	½-½	10	GM Dreev Aleksey	RUS	2697	4½
11	26	GM Moiseenko Alexander	UKR	2673	4½	1-0	61	GM Saric Ivan	CRO	2626	4½
12	28	GM Kobalia Mikhail	RUS	2672	4½	1-0	68	GM Beliavsky Alexander G	SLO	2619	4½
13	31	GM Mamedov Rauf	AZE	2667	4½	1-0	113	GM Kovchan Alexander	UKR	2563	4½
14	65	GM L'ami Erwin	NED	2623	4½	½-½	34	GM Zvjaginsev Vadim	RUS	2663	4½
15	97	GM Guseinov Gadir	AZE	2584	4½	½-½	44	GM Gharamian Tigran	FRA	2650	4½
16	104	GM Jones Gawain C B	ENG	2578	4½	0-1	46	GM Korobov Anton	UKR	2647	4½
17	1	GM Svidler Peter	RUS	2730	4	1-0	72	GM Azarov Sergei	BLR	2615	4
18	75	GM Stevic Hrvoje	CRO	2611	4	0-1	2	GM Nepomniachtchi Ian	RUS	2729	4
19	3	GM Navara David	CZE	2722	4	1-0	74	GM Popov Ivan	RUS	2613	4
20	5	GM Jakovenko Dmitry	RUS	2718	4	1-0	77	GM Grigoryan Avetik	ARM	2608	4

Some notable participants:

Ernesto Inarkiev (chessanytime)

Ivan Salgado Lopez (chessanytime)

Alexander Khalifman (World champion in 1999) (chessanytime)

Victor Bologan (chessanytime)

Tomorrow (Tuesday) will be the rest day.

The previous champions:

Year	Player	Country
2000	Pavel Tregubov	RUS (FRA)
2001	Emil Sutovsky	ISR
2002	Bartolomej Macieja	POL
2003	Zurab Azmaiparashvili	GEO
2004	Vassily Ivanchuk	UKR
2005	Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu	ROM
2006	Zdenko Kozul	HRV
2007	Vladislav Tkachiev	KAZ (FRA)
2008	Sergei Tiviakov	RUS (NED)
2009	Evgeny Tomashevsky	RUS
2010	Ian Nepomniachtchi	RUS

Here are some rules, one of the most controversial being 'Zero Tolerance' for later-comers. One just has to be at the board at the beginning of the round!

The championship is an 11-round Swiss and the rate of play: 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from move one.

The Prizes:

The first 25 share 113,700 € and there will be 15 special prizes totaling 6 300 € for the best 'performance minus rating' achievements.

1	20 000 €
2	15 000 €
3	11 000 €
4	8 000 €
5	7 000 €
6	6 000 €
7	5 500 €
8	5 000 €
9	4 500 €
10	4 000 €

down to 25th (1000 Euros).

The top 'special' prize will be 1 000 €.

Rounds 8 to 11 will be at 3pm (local time) from Wednesday onwards.

For more information go to:Official site