Ballarat 2008

The annual Ballarat Begonia Open was held over this Victorian Long Weekend. Traditionally this has been Australia's No.2 weekender (behind the Doeberl Cup), although I feared this year it may suffer from the proximity to Easter. Normally there is anywhere between 3 and 6 weeks between it and the Doeberl, but this year there is only 9 days from the end of one and the start of the other.
I'm happy to say that the event still drew a large field of 95 players, although clearly the top players were absent this year, possibly due to the nearness of the Doeberl/SIO tournaments. The tournament ended in a tie for first between top seed IM Leonid Sandler, and sixth seed Dusan Stojic. Third place was shared between Andrew Brown (ACT), Domagoj Dragicevic, Milenko Lojanica, Carl Gorka, and David Hacche (all Victoria). Andrew Brown's result was a very good one, leading with 4/4 at one stage, and drawing with Sandler, but losing to Stojic Gorka.