2008 Vikings Weekender - Day 1

The 2008 Vikings Weekender attracted a very good field of 58 players. This is up 10 players from last year and 23 up from 2006. The top end of the tournament is also pretty strong with 5 players over 2000, and the top 2 seeds (Endre Ambrus and Vladimir Smirnov) both rated 2300+.
After 3 rounds there are still 4 players on 3/3. Endre Ambrus, Max Illingworth, Yi Yuan and Andrew Brown have all won their first 3 games, although with a 60m+10s time limit, some of them had to work hard to stay at the top. There are still 6 players on 2.5, including Junta Ikeda and Allen Setiabudi, who played an exciting draw in the last round 3 game to finish.
Round 4 will see top board clashes between Endre Ambrus and Andrew Brown on board 1, and Yi Yuan and Max Illingworth on Board 2. With such a large field, a win for nay of these players should guarantee a large chunk of the $500 first prize.
Standings after 3 rounds (and a provisional draw for round 4) can be found here.