The second round was fully dominated by the white players, at least when looking at the scores. The situation was less straightforward when looking at the actual games. After an hour's play only Hammer was the only white player who could be satisfied with his position.
The Norwegian player quickly gained the upper hand against Pia Cramling. Black's knight manoeuvre Nd7-f8-g6 looked strange and a couple of moves later Cramling was forced to sacrifice a pawn. She never obtained sufficient compensation and after the nice exchange 25.Rxd5 Qxd5 26.Bc4, Hammer had no problems in securing the win.
Jonny Hector improvised with the non-theoretical 9.a3 against Tiger Hillarp Persson but the experiment backfired. Black quickly obtained comfortable play with pressure both in the centre and on the queenside. Perhaps Hillarp should have increased the pressure by playing the bishop to b7 and rook from f8 to the c-file instead of advancing with his a-pawn. In his attempts to find the right plan, Hillarp used up a lot of time. Hector took full advantage of this when Hillarp missed that the pawn on e4 was poisoned due to the elegant reply 29.Ng4.
The most interesting game of the round was without a doubt the encounter between the youngsters Anish Giri and Nils Grandelius. In a sharp Catalan variation, the Dutch player sacrificed a couple of pawns. Whether 13.Qg4 was the result of home preparation or found at the board is uncertain but the more normal continuation is 13.Qh5. Grandelius seemed to have included 13.Qg4 in his preparations at least because the reply came quickly. After twenty moves it looked like Grandelius had neutralised White's initiative and had a promising position with his two extra pawns. However, the inexact 21...h4 did not help his position. It would have been better to play 21...0-0 (21...c3 also looks interesting). The decisive error came later with 24...Nd8, this should definitely have been replaced by 24...0-0. Had Giri then taken the knight, Black has four pawns as compensation. After the game continuation, Giri could finish off his opponent in style.