6th Gibtelecom Chess Festival, one of the most important open tournaments in the world, at the point where the Atlantic Ocean meets with the Mediterranean took place between January 22-30 at Caleta Hotel, in Gibraltar. Many strong players including GM Yue Wang , GM Bu Xiangzhi, GM Ni Hua, GM Wang Hao , the Chinese squad, GM Viktor Bologan, GM Hikaru Nakamura and GM Kiril Georgiev were participating. The winner was determined by the play-off between GM Xiangzhi Bu and GM Hikaru Nakamura who shared the first place with 8 points out of 10 and the winner was the American GM Hikaru Nakamura.

There are many players from the Mediterranean region, including GM Alexander Beliavsky from Slovenia, top Turkish GM Mikhail Gurevich, GM Hristos Banikas from Greece, GM Juan Manuel Bellon Lopez from Spain, reigning champion of Greece IM Ioannis Papadopoulos and Slovenian star of women's chess IM Anna Muzychuk also played in the event.