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Masters Round 5 Report

Jan 26, 2020

John Saunders reports: Round five of the 2020 Gibraltar Masters took place on Saturday 25 January 2020 at the Caleta Hotel. After the overnight leader, Ivan Cheparinov (Georgia), was held to a draw by Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria), we now have five players in the leading score group on 4½/5. The other four are Wang Hao (China), Parham Maghsoodloo (Iran), Andrey Esipenko and David Paravyan (both Russia). There are 12 players on 4/5, including fourth seed Veselin Topalov. The two joint favourites, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan) and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France) are amongst those on 3½. The leading female competitors are Nataliya Buksa (Ukraine), Bela Khotenashvili (Georgia), Zhansaya Abdumalik (Kazakhstan) and Anna Muzychuk (Ukraine) on 3½ points. The round was followed by the now traditional Battle of the Sexes, with the Gentlemen’s team winning against the Ladies by a score of +2, =0, -1, though it has to be said that it is the men’s calamitously short loss in the first game which will live longest in the memory.