2012 ANU Chess Festival - Day 1

The 2012 ANU Chess Festival began with the traditional simul in the centre of Canberra. As for the past few years King O'Malley's played host, with IM Andras Toth doing the honours. Numbers were a little down on previous years, with only 11 players taking on Toth. However it was a tough simul with most players rated between 1500 and 1850.
When the final move had been played Toth had scored 10 wins and 1 draw. Miles Patterson was the player who avoided defeat, winning a book voucher from event sponsors University Co-op Bookshops. However Toth had to work hard in a number of games, especially against Glenn Ingham. At one point Ingham was up a whole rook, but threats against the king, combined with an advanced passed pawn allowed Toth liquidate enough material and make the pawn count.
Tomorrow is the first day of the 2012 ANU Open, at the Canberra School of Art. Top seed is GM Zong-Yuan Zhao, but there are a number of young challengers (Brown, Ly, Ikeda, Illingworth) to make the tournament an exciting one. Play begins at 10am and the first fay will see a very testing 4 rounds.