After 7 rounds Salome Melia (2449) Georgian chess player who is ranked #16 at prestige tournament which is underway in Gibraltar is on the 7th place and she is half point behind leader Ukrainian Vassily Ivanchuk (2764).
Melia won over compatriot Giorgi Kacheishvili (2585) with white pieces and gained 5.5 points, it caused her advance.
English Nigel Short (2658), German Daniel Fridman (2655), Michael Roiz (Israel, 2649), Indian Geetha Narayanan Gopal (2597), Jew Viktor Mikhalevski (2579) have the same points as Salome Melia has, but they are ahead her with additional showings.
Kacheishvili has 4.5 points and he is on the 37th place. Nana Dzagnidze who lost with Gopal also has 4.5 points and she is on the 30th place.
In the 8th round Georgian players will play with black pieces. Melia’s next rival is German Fridman, Kacheishvili plays against French Gabriel Battaglini (2437) and as for Dzagnidze she plays against she plays against Russian Aleksey Savin (2417). Central match is held between Ivanchuk and Roiz.
10 rounds will be held at the tournament and it will finish on February 3. Prize money is 126 000 GBP. Champion will win 17 500 GBP. Top 12 chess players will be rewarded.
There was held blitz competition at the tournament, only Melia participated in blitz from Georgian players. Salome was in group “International” where participants were Fridman, American Anna Zatonskih (2470) and German Achim Illner (2345).
“International” won 2 matches, drew twice and lost 2 ones in 6 rounds. As a result “international” gained 6 points and took the 6th place among 10 groups. As for Melia, she won 3 times in 6 matches, drew once and lost twice with Battaglini of France and Weber of Luxembourg (2314).
