Given this is being posted on the morning of day 2, rather than at the end of day 1, kind of shows how busy yesterday was. And with 3 other tournaments starting today, it looks like it is going to be just as hectic.
The Premier did get under way yesterday with 2 rounds. At this stage most games have gone according to seeding, although Sydney junior Max Illingworth drew with GM Varuzhan Akobian on board 3. And in round 2 GM Gawain Jones had an easy win when IM Guy West simply forgot there was an evening round and failed to show within the 1 hour forfeit time. When he did return to the tournament hall (a number of "Where are you Guy?" phone messages being the spur), he was very apologetic to his opponent and the organisers.
Of course one of the problems with publishing draws in advance (as we did for Round 1 of the Premier) is the number of no shows who have to be dealt with. In some cases this was due to unavoidable circumstances, but in others the "No refund policy" is going to hurt. Probably the biggest beneficiary was Sanmogam Goundar who was going to receive the bye in the first round but instead ended up on board 4 against GM SS Ganguly after Denis Bourmistrov failed to appear.
Sadly the DGT boards are all broken, with the exception of the one that was repaired on Wednesday (and unless you know what a 78L05A chip does, don't ask the why rest can't be repaired today). This means that there is likely to only be one game being broadcast live, although we will try and get the top board games from the Premier up as soon as possible at the end of the round.
Hopefully I will be able to do some more blogging from the venue, or you can check out The Closet Grandmaster who is also covering the event.
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