2011 O2C Doeberl Cup - Day 2

As much as the first day of the Doeberl Cup is when the big dogs come out to play, day 2 is when it really kicks in to gear as Australia's number one chess event. With the Major, Minor and Under 1200 events all starting, the venue was filled with 235 players of all strengths, shapes and sizes.

After a brief opening ceremony, all the events began on time, with the third round of the Premier, and the first round of the other tournaments.

After some upsets in yesterdays second round, the top boards had an us v them feel about it, with the higher seeded players facing a number of promising talents. However ratings don't lie and the top seeds picked up the points, although FM Akshat Khamparia did draw with GM David Arutinian on board 1. Round 4 then saw a number of top seeds come together, but whether it was the effects of the second game of the day, or just mid tournament caution, there a number of draws, resulting in a big group of players in joint first place. GM's Deviatkin, Bojkov, Smerdon, and Hansen were joined by FM's Illingworth and Akshat on 3.5/4.

The first two rounds of the Major and Minor were also held, but with each field attracting around 70 players it is still early days. The 2 day Under 1200 event has already completed 3 rounds and Lance Chiddy, Rueben Nowak and James Ashton all have perfect scores.

Unfortunately, the online popularity of the event had one negative effect, with the tournament website crashing due to the load on the server. Hopefully this will be fixed tomorrow ( depending on the competence of the helper monkeys at the hosting service), but results from the Premier and Major can be found at www.chess-results.com, while the results and pairings for the Minor and Under 1200 event can be found at the ANU Chess Club Website (click on the Non-ANU Tournaments link)