O2C Doeberl Cup Day 3

As in golf, Day 3 of the Doeberl Cup is usually "moving" day. However the strength of the field at the top end of this years event, meant that a whole lot of players moved together, without anyone player jumping ahead.
At the end of Round 6 three players lead the tournament on 5/6. They are GM Ian Rogers, GM Victor Mikhalevski, and IM Stephen Solomon. Of the three, Solomon had the most impressive day with a win over tournament second seed GM Georgy Timoshenko. Timoshenko seemed to be winning their round 5 game before going into a trance and letting his time run out. This is Solomons second win on time, after his win over top seed GM Sergei Shipov in Round 3.
GM Ian Rogers moved from 4/4 to 5/6 with two draws today. His round 5 game against IM David Smerdon had the crowd enthralled, as it looked at first Rogers was winning, then Smerdon. In a complicated position, Rogers took a draw by perpetual. In Round 6 Rogers drew with Solomon to leave them in equal first with Mikhalevski.
Mikhalevski caught the leaders with 2 wins today. The first was against Jesse Sales and the second was against Canberra junior, Junta Ikeda.

Ikeda,J - Mikhalevski,V [D94]
Doeberl Cup, 08.04.2007

1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 c5 3.e3 g6 4.c4 Bg7 5.Nc3 0-0 6.Be2 d5 7.b3 Nc6 8.0-0 dxc4 9.bxc4 Nh5 10.Rb1 b6 11.Bb2 cxd4 12.Nxd4 Nxd4 13.exd4 Nf4 14.d5 Ba6 15.Nb5 Bxb5 16.Bxg7 Ba4 17.Qxa4 Nxe2+ 18.Kh1 Kxg7 19.Qd1 Nf4 0-1

Mikhalevski was Ikeda's 3rd GM opponent of the event. After drawing with Antic yesterday, Ikeda went one better and defeated GM Tejas Bakre (IND) in round 5. If the event was a 9 round event, then Ikeda would have been in with a good chance of scoring an IM result.

The key final round pairings are: Mikhalevski (5) v Rogers (5), Solomon (5) v Matamoros (4.5), Antic (4.5) v Shipov (4.5), Johansen (4.5) v Smerdon (4.5), Rej (4.5) v Lane (4.5)

In the Doeberl Cup Major, Adrian Denoskowski has at least a share of 1st after winning his first 6 games. Only Richard Voon on 5 has any chance of catching him. Jonathan Shen is in the same situation in the Minor (6/6) although there are 4 other players on 5 points. And the Seniors is down to 2 players with Bob Gibbons (5.5) just ahead of Phil Viner (5).