Stellwagen - Åkesson. Position after 35...Nc3+
Perhaps the tournament was decided in this round, because with two rounds left Tiger Hillarp Persson now leads the rest of the field with a full point.
Daniel Stellwagen, who up until now had hardly made a mistake, seemed to be on his way to score yet another point against Ralf Åkesson when disaster struck in time-trouble. After Åkesson's piece sacrifice 35. - Nc3+ (35. - Nf6 36.Qc7 Rb8 37.Qxe7 wins for White), Stellwagen only needed to play a couple of sensible defensive moves to refute Black's attack.
Stellwagen - Åkesson. Position after 35...Nc3+
The simplest way was probably 37.Rc1 Qxa3 38.Rc2 and everything is well protected. Instead he played 37.Qf2? Nc4 38.Ne5? (38.Rd1 and White can still hang on) and lost his queen after some checks from Åkesson.
Tiger Hillarp Persson won surprisingly easy as black against Kjetil Lie. The Norwegian's opening play, once again, was far too optimistic (12.g4, 13.h4) and Black was probably winning after only 14 moves.
Lars Bo Hansen climbed to a shared second place after playing a quick draw with the black pieces against Evgenij Agrest.
Vasilios Kotronias sacrificed an exchange early on in a Ruy Lopez game against Lajos Portisch. To take some of the pressure off his position, the Hungarian player sacrificed back the exchange. Although White was slightly better with bishop vs knight and a slightly better pawn structure, Portisch had no problems in holding a draw.
The longest game of the day was the one between Axel Smith and Jan Timman. After the incautious 13.Bb5, Black could seize the initiative with 13. - Nb4 since 14.Bxd7 is punished by 14. - Nxe4!. Instead, Smith was forced to retreat with 14.Bd3 which gave Timman the opportunity to sacrifice an exchange. Although Smith managed to fend off the attack against his king, Timman had excellent compensation in the resulting endgame due to his strong bishop pair. Smith defended well until he somewhat prematurely took on e5 at move 45. This allowed Timman to activate his black-squared bishop along the diagonal c1-h6 and White's position soon became untenable.