Jobava and Efimenko again!

A two-horse race is emerging with Jobava and Efimenko both winning to get them to 5.5/6.
In the ladies event Monika Socko continues her great form with another win and now leads alone.

As time goes by, the lower rated players tend to be pushed aside by the top seeds making their way towards the front of the peloton.

So it's perhaps no surprise that after five rounds, the leading 27 players were all Grandmasters, 3 being over 2700, 18 in the 2600s and only six in the 2500s.

In terms of nationalities there were seven Russians within half-a-point of the lead.

In the following table the majority of the players had four points before today's sixth round. The exceptions being the top two boards and Motylev (on 3.5) who floated up.

1	GM	Artyom Timofeev (4.5)	RUS	2655	0-1	GM	Baadur Jobava (4.5)	GEO	2695
2	GM	Zahar Efimenko (4.5)	UKR	2640	1-0	GM	Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (4.5)	ROU	2661
3	GM	Emil Sutovsky	ISR	2650	0-1	GM	Zoltan Almasi	HUN	2720
4	GM	Francisco Vallejo Pons	ESP	2708	0.5-0.5	GM	Vadim Zvjaginsev	RUS	2643
5	GM	Michael Adams	ENG	2704	0.5-0.5	GM	Ivan Sokolov	BIH	2638
6	GM	Arkadij Naiditsch	GER	2691	0-1	GM	Bojan Vuckovic	SRB	2630
7	GM	Igor Kurnosov	RUS	2674	0.5-0.5	GM	Viorel Iordachescu	MDA	2621
8	GM	Rauf Mamedov	AZE	2639	1-0	GM	Alexander Areshchenko	UKR	2670
9	GM	Constantin Lupulescu	ROU	2598	0.5-0.5	GM	Kiril Georgiev	BUL	2669
10	GM	Emanuel Berg	SWE	2594	0.5-0.5	GM	Ernesto Inarkiev	RUS	2667
11	GM	Alexander Riazantsev	RUS	2660	1-0	GM	Samvel Ter-Sahakyan	ARM	2513
12	GM	Gergely-Andras-Gyula Szabo	ROU	2525	0.5-0.5	GM	Denis Khismatullin	RUS	2657
13	GM	Ian Nepomniachtchi	RUS	2656	1-0	GM	Hrant Melkumyan	ARM	2582
14	GM	Alexander Motylev (3.5)	RUS	2705	1-0	GM	Nikita Maiorov	BLR	2510

As the table demonstrates, decisive results on the top two boards leaves Efimenko (Ukraine) and Jobava (Georgia) ahead on 5.5/6. The players on five points are Almasi (Hungary), Vuckovic (Serbia), Rauf Mamedov (Azerbaijan) and then a couple of Russians Riazantsev and Nepomniachtchi.

Artyom Timofeev lost with White.

In the Women's standings after five rounds four of the top fourteen are rated more than 2500.

In the table below, three players had 4.5 (before today's round), whereas the other 11 had 4/5.

1	GM	Monika Socko (4.5)	POL	2465	1-0	GM	Tatiana Kosintseva (4.5)	RUS	2524
2	GM	Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant (4.5)	SCO	2447	0-1	GM	Antoaneta Stefanova	BUL	2555
3	IM	Mariya Muzychuk	UKR	2444	0.5-0.5	IM	Nadezhda Kosintseva	RUS	2554
4	IM	Ekaterina Kovalevskaya	RUS	2438	0.5-0.5	IM	Anna Muzychuk	SLO	2533
5	IM	Viktoija Cmilyte	LTU	2485	1-0	IM	Svetlana Matveeva	RUS	2373
6	WGM	Anastasia Savina	RUS	2391	0.5-0.5	GM	Nana Dzagnidze	GEO	2479
7	IM	Anna Ushenina	UKR	2452	0-1	WGM	Lilit Galojan	ARM	2380

The five Russians had a poor day (+0=3-2) and after the round Socko (5.5) leads from Stefanova, Cmilyte and the underdog Galojan, all on 5 and none of whom are Russian!

More information on the official tournament site