After five rounds only 7 of the 25 games have ended in a draw. It remains to be seen whether this low number of draws will continue or if the players will be more cautious as the tournament proceeds.
Tiger Hillarp Persson easily equalized with the black pieces against Ralf Åkesson. In an Anti-Meraner setup, White lost some tempos with 17.Ne2 followed by playing it to c3 on the next move. The play was balanced until Åkesson seemed to lose his patience and started to attack with 23.f4 followed by 24.f5. He must have missed something simple since after the natural reply 24. - Nh5, the pawn on f4 could not be saved and White's attack had vaporized. In mutual time-trouble Åkesson tried to complicate matters but Hillarp kept his cool and could easily bring home the point.
In the Dutch encounter between Daniel Stellwagen and Jan Timman, the latter played an odd variant in the French with an early queen maneouvre to a4. Black's 19. - h5 also looked a bit strange but seemed ok. In the 23rd move, the computer program wants to replace castling long with 23. - Bg4, a pawn sacrifice that seems to give Black decent compensation after 24.Bxg4 hxg4 25.Rxg4 Qd7 26.Qd1 and now perhaps 26. - 0-0-0. After 25. - e3, as played in the game, Timman looked to have enough counterplay but when Stellwagen evacuated his king to g1 and activated his queen to g5 via f1 and f4, White's advanced g-pawn decided the game in his favour.
Kjetil Lie tried to crack Lars Bo Hansen's solid Caro-Kann by first sacrificing the h-pawn and then the d-pawn. It looked a bit desperate and once Hansen had taken both pawns, there was no effective continuation for Lie. This was simply a game where the Norwegian's incurable optimism backfired.
Evgenij Agrest chose an aggressive setup against Lajos Portisch's Queen's Gambit. Castling on separate wings together with White's mobile pawn centre, made sure that the play was very sharp. Portisch eased the pressure by some exchanges but White's passed d-pawn was still a big strength. In the end, Agrest managed to force both his rooks into the seventh row and Black's fate was sealed.
Axel Smith was surprised by Vasilios Kotronias's 12. - Rd8 in a Sicilian game. After a long thought, Smith chose a more cautious continuation and exchanged queens. After three straight losses this was an understandable choice. The most important was to avoid yet another loss, not to go for a win at all costs. The game turned out to be the longest game of the round but in the end Smith reached his goal and scored half a point.