The second round also provided the audience with tough games. All games had a decisive result and surprisingly Black took four of the five points.
The most beautiful attack of the round was played by Tiger Hillarp Persson. On the 19th move he sacrificed a knight on f7 and later followed it up with taking on f8. Despite being in horrible time-trouble he had no problems bringing home the point. However, Hillarp only got the chance to sacrifice his knight due to Evgenij Agrests's provoking 18. - h6. After a more ”normal” move Black would have been slightly better.
Jan Timman did not obtain any advantage against Lars Bo Hansen's French defence. Out of desperation, the Dutch player tried to create complications with 15.Ne4 (15.Nc4 seems like a better move) followed by 16.f4 but this was simply bad. Hansen won a pawn on b2 and a couple of moves later on c2. After this the game was more or less decided.
Lajos Portisch chose a careful set-up against the Grünfeld employed by Ralf Åkesson. The game turned into a manoeuvring one with Black applying pressure to White's pawn centre. White seemed to have everything under control but then he played 24.Qe2 followed by 25.Nc4, allowing Åkesson to take control with 26. - Qb5. After this strong move, White could not hold together his queenside and Åkesson got his second win of the tournament.
Kjetil Lie defended himself with a variation of the Ruy Lopez that has come into fashion the last year. Playing 9. - Sa5 and only then 10. - d5 (as a delayed Marshall gambit) had never been considered until the Polish player Gajewski played it last summer. Vasilios Kotronias chose not to accept the pawn and opted for a more normal development. However, playing the rook to g3 after some 20 moves looked like a strange maneouvre and this was also punished with the Greek player forced to sacrifice the exchange. He obtained some compensation but it was not enough. The game came to an abrupt end when he faced the loss of a second exchange as well.
Daniel Stellwagen managed to keep control despite Axel Smith's pawn advances on the kingside in a Sicilian game. Once things had calmed down, the Dutch player started his counterplay along the c-file. To fend off the attack, Smith was forced to exchange queens and enter a worse endgame in which Stellwagen calmly cruised to a victory.