2013 ANU Masters - Week 2

A couple of reasonably quick games started  round 2 of the 2013 ANU Masters. Adrian de Noskowski missed a tactic by Kishore Sretheran and dropped a piece just out of the opening. Stephen Sengstock put Justin Chow under pressure on the kingside, and was also gifted a piece, after Chow simply left it en pris.
The game between IM Andrew Brown and Andrey Bliznyuk was a sharp affair, with  Bliznyuk advancing on the kingside while Brown took space on the opposite wing. Bliznyuk then sacrificed a piece to keep his attack going, but missed the correct followup and quickly found himself in a losing position.
Jeremy Reading almost pulled off the first big tournament upset against FM Junta Ikeda, in a game that eventually went for 141 moves. Ikeda won the exchange after some nice queenside tactics, but Reading obtained compensation in the form of a strong passed pawn in the centre. In a tricky ending both sides looked like queening, and the shortness of time contributed to some inexact play. In fact both sides missed winning continuations, but when the smoke finally cleared, Reading was defending BvR after all the pawns left the board. He quickly ran his king to the correct corner of the board (ie the opposite coloured square to his bishop) and was able to hold the draw.
In the following game Michael Wei whipped up a strong attack against Yijun Zhang, and finished it off with a nice rook sacrifice.


Wei,Michael (2104) - Zhang,Yijun (1860)
2013 ANU Masters Canberra, Australia AUS (2), 20.02.2013

After 2 rounds IM Andrew Brown is the sole leader on 2/2, with FM Junta Ikeda is on 1.5/2. Michael Wei is in the group of players on 1 point, but still has to play his round 1 game against Justin Chow.