After all the action of the previous rounds, the sixth round was a relatively quiet one. Katerina Nemcova got some pressure from a Bb5 Sicilian with the white pieces against Jose Rafael Gascon, to the extent that the Venezuelan felt obliged to sacrifice a pawn. This indeed gave some relieve and after the exchange of queens Black had full compensation. Possibly 19.Qc2 was a better try at organizing White's forces. Since they agreed to a draw, Gascon remains in the sole lead with 5 out of 6. Irine Sukandar and Gergely Szabo took it easy today and played a quick draw.

Sipke Ernst won the Dutch derby against Edwin van Haastert and is now sharing second place with Nemcova on 4.5 out of 6. Ernst played a very unassuming opening with White, to leave the theoretical lines as soon as possible, while still keeping all pieces on the board. Van Haastert's 14...Be6 slightly disturbed the coordination between his pieces and his next move 15...Rad8 was an outright blunder. Ariel Marichal seemed to exert mild pressure, but Humberto Pecorelli kept everything under control and secured half a point.

Ryan Harper bounced back from his loss yesterday evening by beating Jose Luis Vilela in a sharp Caro-Kann attacking game. Probably Black's 15...c5 had to prepared by centralising the rooks first. White missed the thematic attacking move 17.Ne5!, but since Black failed to put his rook on f7 on move 20 or 21, the white attack crashed through anyway. Anna Zozulia blundered heavily as early as move 12 against Orlando Husbands. Suradj Hanoeman won the Surinamese derby against Calvin Tjong Tjin Joe and is the best Surinamese player so far with a 2169 performance.