O2C Doeberl Cup - Day 4

GM Ian Rogers wins another Doeberl Cup! He defeated GM Victor Mikhalevski in the final round to end up sole leader on 6/7. In equal second were a trio of Australian IM's in the shape of Gary Lane, David Smerdon and Stepehen Solomon, all on 5.5.
The excellent result by the Australian players is a good omen for the Sydney International Open which starts tomorrow at Parramatta Town Hall.
Various visiting GM's finished in a tie for 5th place, along with a couple of other Australians. The full results for all the tournament can be found at Ian Rout's page.
From a local point of view (both in terms of Canberra and Australia) one of the more outstanding results was achieved by Junta Ikeda. He had a draw with GM Dejan Antic, a win over GM Tejas Bakre and his final round win over FM Goldenberg left him with a score good enough for an IM norm, if only they counted in 7 round events. Sadly they don't (except for a couple of limited exceptions) and consequently he misses out. However the fact that a number of players played enough OS and titled opponents to reach various IM category fields means that the organisers are strongly considering holding the 2008 Premier as a 9 round norm tournament.
I'll certainly do more tournament reports over the next few days but I would just like to thank a number of hard workers for the moment. Paul Dunn for organising the whole event. My fellow arbiters Dr Charles Zworestiene and Simon Mitchell (Simon's first Doeberl!). Shun Ikeda for manning the desk and organising the other helpers. Jenny Mason, Agus Setiabudi and Jenni Oliver for collecting results, organising scoresheets, handing out chocolates etc. And finally Ian Hosking and Aiden Lloyd who came down on the first morning to help set up, even when neither was able to play in the tournament. Without the help of all these people the tournament wouldn't have been the success it was.