The 2008 Australian Junior Championship got underway a couple of days ago, with 168 players across 4 events. Although 2 rounds have been completed I'll still sneak in my predictions (and I promise I won't use current standings to help me).
In the Open I think top seed Junta Ikeda will win this event (and indeed I made this prediction at then of the 2007 Australian Juniors). Interestingly 3 of the top 5 seeds for this tournament are ACT players (Andrew Brown and Yi Yuan being seeds 3 and 5 respectively).
The Under 18 Girls looks as though it is being run as a 13 player Round Robin, and once again I'll go with the top seed, Sally Yu, as the obvious winner. Possible threats come from Tamzin Oliver (2nd seed), and last years Under 12 Girls Champion Megan Setiabudi.
The Under 12 Open is a much harder event to pick and I must confess I'm not familiar with all the names. Alexander Stahnke is the rating favourite, although Oscar Wang and Vincent Horton could easily end up with the title.
In the Under 12 Girls Abbie Kanagarajah should hold off a likely challenge from Clarise Koh, but this tournament may be case of someone not losing the title, rather than someone else winning it.
At the time of this post the Live Game Broadcast system has fallen foul of internet difficulties (always an organisational hazard) but if you click on the live games link you can get games from the previous rounds.
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1 comment:
Not a bad set of guesses :-)
I'd add that in the Open u18 Chris Wallis is not to be overlooked. In the Girls u18, which is indeed a 13-player round-robin, Megan Setiabudi must be horribly under-rated if she is likely to threaten that bunch. Deborah Ng is another possibilty. In the Open u12 a player to watch is Anurag Sannidhanam who spent the last couple of years living in India and receiving specialist chess coaching, so I am told. Finally in the Girls u 12, Leteisha Simmonds shouldn't be overlooked.
DJ
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