2010 ACT Championship - Day 1

A field of 30 players rolled up for the 2010 ACT Championship. This number is what was expected/hoped for, given the new tournament format. A couple of stronger players who were expected to take part were last minute withdrawals, in part to a stomach bug that seems to floating about Canberra at the moment.
This leaves top seed Junta Ikeda outrating the rest of the field by over 300 points. Clearly with this sort of advantage he is favourite to win the tournament, and at the end of the first day he is on 2/2. Also on a perfect score are Pete Morris, Milan Grcic and Adrian De Noskowski.
As for the tournament format (9 rounds over 2 weekends at 2 rounds a day), it was well received by those who turned up. The most common comment was that it felt like a real championship, rather than just a club event with a few visiting players.
The tournament crosstable and a pgn file of games can be found at Ian Rout's website. In fact Ian probably played the best game of round 1, with a sacrificial win over junior player Yijun Zhang. On move 19 Zhang tried an aggressive move in the centre, only to be met by a whole series of aggressive moves aimed at his king. Ian then finished the game off with a nice rook sacrifice.

Zhang,Yijun (1286) - Rout,Ian (1868) [C91]
2010 ACT Championship Canberra (1.4), 27.02.2010

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 0-0 8.c3 d6 9.d4 Bg4 10.Qd3 Bxf3 11.gxf3 Nh5 12.Bd5 Qd7 13.Be3 exd4 14.Bxc6 Qxc6 15.cxd4 f5 16.Nc3 fxe4 17.fxe4 Qd7 18.Nd5 Qg4+ 19.Kf1 Bh4 20.Qb3 Kh8 21.Nxc7 Rac8 22.Ne6 Rf3 23.Qd5 Bxf2 24.Bxf2 (D)
24. ... Rxf2+ 25.Kxf2 Rc2+ 26.Re2 Rxe2+ 27.Kf1 Qg2# 0-1