Friday 23 December 2011

2011-2012 Australian Championship

The 2011-2012 Australian Championship begins just after Xmas, on the 27th of December. It is being organised by the Geelong Chess Club and will be held in North Geelong, Victoria.
This years event sees an emphasis on youth, with a number of junior players being allowed to play, despite their ratings falling below the nominal 2150 (ACF) cut-off. Top seed for the tournament, and my tip for the title, is GM Zong Yuan Zhao. IM George Xie is the second seed, and would both be keen to claim the title, and to push his rating over the 2500 mark (thereby confirming his GM title). One other player who might be in contention for first place, but not the title, is Indian IM Akshat Khamparia, who clearly enjoys playing in Australian events, after winning this years Sydney International Open.
I'm assuming the official website for the tournament is the Geelong Chess Clubs own site, with the tournament details here. For some reason, the Australian Chess Federations own website does not seem to have a clear link to the tournament site, but if you click on the link related to PDA / iPhone devices you will get there.

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