Record field in Ballarat

In what is clearly a good sign for Australian chess, the traditional Ballarat Begonia Open attracted a record field of 123 players. This 7 round event is still run in a single section, meaning that determining an outright winner can be a bit tricky in an unmodified swiss. Therefore it was run as an accelerated swiss, although as the last Olympiad showed, acceleration often moves the round 1 mismatches up to round 3.
One player who received a harder than expected first round pairing was WFM Emma Guo. Passing on the ACT Championships (she had committed to Ballarat before the ACT Champs details wear announced) she had to play top see IM Stephen Solomon in round 1.


Solomon,Stephen - Guo,Emma [B42]
Ballarat Begonia Open, 06.03.2010

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Bd3 Be7 8.f4 d6 9.0-0 Nc6 10.Qf3 h5 11.e5 Ng4 12.Nxc6 Qxc6 13.Bd4 Qxf3 14.Rxf3 dxe5 15.fxe5 0-0 16.Ne4 Bd7 17.Rg3 Kh8 18.Rf1 Bc6 19.c3 Rad8 20.Rf4 g6 21.Nd6 Bxd6 22.exd6+ e5 (D)
23.Rfxg4 exd4 24.Rxd4 Rd7 25.b4 Rc8 26.Rg5 Kg7 27.Bf5 1-0

Even with acceleration, the winning score was still 6.5/7, acheived by FM Erik Teichmann. There was a 3 way tie for second between IM Stephen Solomon, IM Leonid Sandler and FM Bobby Cheng, all on 6.