Finally we have a sole leader. That was decided on board one where Inarkiev (RUS), playing white, managed to defeat his fellow countryman  GM Sjugirov. It was a kind of one-way game from the opening until the end since Inarkiev took the initiative in the Sicilian defense very early. From other 12 games on the top we saw ten draws and just two decided games. The winners were Volokitin (UKR) against Petrosian (ARM) and Navara (CZE) against Nanu (ROU), both playing on black side. This time however we must give our credits to the players who were fighting until the last soldier, except in two quick draws.
Behind Inarkiev who has 5,5 points we have now three players with 5,0 points-Volokitin (UKR), Meier (GER) and Navara (CZE)- followed by a group of 25 players with plus two (4,0 points). In this group there is just one player from former Yugoslavia – Ivan Sokolov who is  playing under the Dutch flag.
This fact gave me the motif to open an interesting discussion, trying to analyze  the reasons for such a sad reality. It is beyond any doubt that the chess quality in all the countries that were born after the dissolution of Yugoslavia has deteriorated. I would like to remind You that in the long period from the end of the world war second until the early eighties our former country was a second chess power, only behind USSR. Our last Olympic medal was the bronze in Malta (1980), followed by two silver medals from European championships (Plovdiv, Haifa). Then the war started and when the arms returned to be silent the newborn countries took each of them their own way, closing the entire chess activity inside the proper borders almost hermetically. On the other hand a common poverty caused by the war put our game on the bottom of the list of priorities from the financial point of view. As a consequence of a considerably weaker competition the quality of chess was going down slowly but steadily.
One more reason is a drastic change of social system in all so called «countries of transition». We might say that we fell asleep in some kind of more flexible communism and we wake up in the most cruel form of capitalism which had never demonstrated a lot of understanding for such a splendid mind game as chess definitely is. To conclude for tonight, if there is something that makes me nostalgic about Yugoslavia, it is a treatment of chess in the old society. In those times, to be a chess professional was an honorably job very estimated and supported by the state. We will continue to discuss this issue in the next commentaries.
With this round we entered a second half of the tournament. Tomorrow there is a round seven on schedule and day after tomorrow it will be a rest day. Since it is Friday 13, I suspect, knowing how superstitious are chess players, that the organizers did it on purpose.