GM Hrant Melkumyan is the outright leader of the 2019 O2C Doeberl Cup after 6 rounds. Melkumyan was the only leading player to win both his games on the third day, and he now holds a half point lead over the 5 players who share second place.
Melkumyan started the day with a win over IM George Xie in round 5, and defeated GM Darryl Johansen in round 6. Xie had a shocker of a day on Saturday, losing to Melkumyan, and then being defaulted in round 6 after 15 moves, when it was discovered he was carrying his mobile phone in his pocket. While the phone was switched off (this being checked by the arbiting team), this is still ground for an instant loss. Xie accepted this ruling, but then decided that as the loss left him with little chance of winning a prize, he would withdraw from the event.
Round 7 sees Melkumyan versus GM Anton Smirnov on board 1, with GM Deep Sengupta v IM Igor Bjelobrk on board 2 and FM Raymond Song v WGM Padmini Rout on the third board. Song drew both his games yesterday, but is still on track for a GM norm.
Last night also saw the 2019 Doeberl Cup Blitz event, with 114 players taking part. Tom Maguire won the tournament with 8/9, ahead of Fred Litchfield and Sravan Renjith on 7.5.
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