No Short Draws Allowed!

In the third round there were 5 draws on the top six boards with most of them being genuine draws. There was one exception however, The draw between Antanas Kizov and Dejan Antic ended up in a line where threefold repetition often occurs. The Arbiter apparently gave them an earfull but no action was taken as the "Gibraltar Rule" of having no draws shorter than 30 moves or less without the approval of the Arbiter had not been announced before the start of the tournament. The Organisers were very quick to change this and an announcement was made before round 4. On top board IM David Smerdon claimed an excellent result by drawing with Zhang Zhong. board two saw GM Malakhatko defeat WGM Roufin Li, board three saw GM SS Ganguly draw with Israeli IM Igor Bitansky (who told me that he was out of form - really?) GM Gawain Jones drew with Gary lane on board four, GM Merab Gagunashvili drew with Igor Goldenberg on board 5. Akobian kept climbing up the ranks after his first round draw against Max Illingworth by defeating Pinoy FM Jesse Sales. IM Puchen Wang accounted for Australian champion IM Stephen Solomon.

On one of the lower boards it was the battle of the Stojics with Dusan defeating Svetozar. After his first round draw with Akobian, Max Illingworth fell to 0.5/3 by going down to Tony Davis.

On to round four and after the announcement of the Gibraltar rule there were a grand total of 9 draws in the Premier division with only 3 of the top 15 boards resulting without a win. Board one saw Aussie GM Darryl Johansen fly the flag high by defeating the second seed GM Vadim Malakhatko. Board two saw Zhang Zhong account for NZ rising star Puchen Wang. After drawing against Zhang Zhong IM David Smerdon put his rook in an awkward spot where it was out of play and Akobian dodged some tactical tricks to eventually win the game.IM Gary Lane lost to GM SS Ganguly on board four. Gawain Jones defeated FM Igor Goldenberg on board five. Igor Bitansky continued his excellent tourney by drawing with GM Merab Gagunashvili on board six and Dejan Antic accounted for FM Igor Goldenberg to complete the GM Wrap up.

Results of note for the fourth round of the Premier include Ben Lazarus scoring a draw against WGM Anna Zozulia.

Tomorrow Mornings round will be crunch time as the top three boards are occupied wholly with GM's. How many draws will we see amongst this lot?

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The upsets started on the top board in the first round of the U2000 first round. Peter Fraemohs lost to Queensland Senior Oleg Korenevski on the top board. Kerry Stead accounted for Laurence Matheson on board two and Toby Lewski got a draw out of Alex Mendes Da Costa.

Other Upsets include Victorian Sally Yu accounting for ACT local Sherab Guo Yuthok, Michael Courtney drew with Tony Weller and James Satrapa held Joshua Christensen to a draw as did Justin Tan against David Lovejoy.

Round two saw Kerry Stead Lose to Michael Dunn on the top board, Blair Mandla continued to 2 points by defeating John Marsden and Mehmedalija dizdarevic accounted for Nicolas Kordahi on board three. The Closet Grandmaster, Amiel Rosario defeated Aina Musaeva on board four. Further down the field Andrey Bliznyuk and Mos Ali agreed on a draw, as did Oleg Korenevski against Richard Voon. Meanwhile Efrain Toinko defeated Jamie Roberts. Phil Viner and Toby Lewsky agreed on a draw as did tony weller against Justin Tan and Sebatian Jule against Laurence Matheson.

Will the string of top board upsets contue tomorrow? We'll soon find out. Time to sleep.
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The minor will be updated later on