Catching up

In this Post i'll talk abou the things i've missed recently

Firstly and Foremostly, congratulations to Zong-Yuan Zhao on winning the Autralian Open on a score of 9.5/11 closely followed by Rogers on 9/11 and Canadian GM Bluvshtein and GM Daryl Johansen Rounding out the podium finishers. There were a disappointing 58 entries in the event

In the Supporting events:

The Minor which was played over the first few days was won by young ACT Junior Allen Setibudi with a picket fence score. I remember Allen defeating me when he had a very low rating at the ANU Open in 2005!!! Congratulations Allen!!!

The Major was Played after the New Year and was won by Sherab Guo - Yuthok who drew twice and won his other four to win with a score of 5/6.
The top seed of the Major, Brian Thomas could only get a draw out of Sherab and lost to Yi Yuan to come outright second on 4.5/6.

Victorian Leon Kempen and New South Welshman FM Brian Jones both ended up in the seniors undefeated, however Leon played out two draws where as Brian was held to three. Congratulations to Leon Kempen for winning the Australian Seniors on a score of 6/7

Thats my wrap up of the Australian Open events (although anyone who reads this will probably already know the details...). Games from all these events can now be downloaded from the Ozbase website.


The Australian Juniors Started on the 14th of January and will end on the 28th. Current Leaders after 5 rounds are Christopher Wallis and Michael Wei on a score of 5/5 with James morris half a point behind. There are 85 players in this event.

Girls U18 is being led by Jessica Kinder on 5, Emma Guo on 4.5 and Sarah Behne Smith performing above her rating on 4. There are 25 players in this event.

In the U12 Open division Yi Yuan and Laurence Matherson are equal leaders on a picket fence score followed by 9 players on 4 points. There are 78 players in this event.

And in the very little ladies class (U12 Girls) there is a field of 22 players which is being led by Abbie Kanagarajah on 4.5 points followed by Caroline Shan and Clarise Koh on 4.5 points.

AND NOW

Internationally the Corus tournament is currently being held in Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands. Before it had started i picked Topalov to win. I like his attacking style of play. The event is a single round robin due to the amount of players in the premier event this year.

The contenders are
Veselin Topalov, Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik, Levon Aronian, Teymour Radjabov, Peter Svidler, Ruslan Ponomariov, David Navara, Alexey Shirov, Magnus Carlsen, Loek van Wely, Sergey Karjakin, Sergey Tiviakov, Alexander Motylev.

It will be interesting how the youngsters go. How will Magnus Carlsen and Karjakin go against the big guns? Can Radjabov prove that he is the superior of the youngsers?

After five rounds Radjabov leads on 5/5 but he has not yet met any of the higher rated grandmasters. Second on 3.5/5 is Vishy Anand and Vaselin Topalov.

One of the games, Navara - Radjabov interested me as i like to play the benko gambit but this was not really a benko gambit. I will be interested to see if more games are played with this system. I may even employ it myself!!!

Ok thats it! Now i'll post regularly!