On board number one we witnessed a fighting draw between two leaders. Georgian GM playing white tried to avoid any kind of theoretical discussion even of the cost of giving to the opponent that usual symbolic advantage of white pieces. Inarkiev tried to take profit of such a situation and sacrificed a piece in one moment. As a consequence, a lot of pieces were exchanged and Black was obliged to repeat the moves being a piece down in the endgame. In other games on the top after a hard fight only Sokolov managed to break the balance and score the full point, joining the leading group with 7,0 points. Behind them there are 17 players with plus four (6,5 points), followed by 29 players with plus three (6,0 points). All these guys still have a chance to qualify for the World Cup.
This evening we took part in one more event of chess culture. It was the promotion of the book «The Peaks of Chess», written in English by the GM Božidar (Bonja) Ivanović especially for the foreign participants. The edition in his mother tongue is only to follow. When writing the book each author must make two important decisions. First, to choose a theme and second, to decide which group of readers the book is aiming for. This time Ivanović made a selection of 64 beautiful games played in last two years (2007,2008) by top players, annotated in details. Personally I would prefer to see a kind of autobiographical book with his most beautiful games, since he was one of the leading Yugoslav players in mid eighties. In a friendly atmosphere we refreshed a lot of common memories and answered some questions of the chess fans.

M.Cebalo