2013 O2C Doeberl Cup - Day 1

The first day of the 2013 O2C Doeberl Cup got off to a sedate start, but ended with a lot more action. With the organising team taking around 2 hours to transform an empty playing hall into a fully fledged chess venue, most players turned up to find everything ready to go. So relaxed were the playing group that at 1 minute before start time we could only spot around 40% of the players!
However once the clocks were started the 70 player Premier field quickly appeared and the action got under way. Somewhat surprisingly for the first round of the Doeberl Premier, there were very few upsets. George Lester scored the quickest win after Indian IM Aditya Udeshi failed to turn up for the tournament (despite having registered for the tournament). Fortunately this was the only 'no show' as the tournament policy of not pairing unpaid entrants weeded out the players who entered in advance but then made no effort to contact the organisers when they decided they weren't turning up.
Apart from the point to Lester, Tony David and John Nemeth were the only other 2 players to take something from the top half. Davis drew with IM Andrew Brown in a very tricky game, while Nemeth drew with IM Somak Palit.
However it was a completely different story in round 2. Already there were a number of GM v IM pairings on the top boards, as well as some younger players looking for scalps. The first big upset was Justin Tan beating GM Atilla Czebe. This was quickly followed by number 2 seed GM Loek Van Wely going down to IM Stephen Solomon. The game seemed even, if double edged, when a mis-step by Van Wely saw him quickly overrun on the kingside. Then in one of the last games to finish, GM Adam Horvath over committed to an attack and when it didn't quite wok found himself down a piece against Luke Li. After a time scramble and some further hairy moments Li was finally able to consolidate his advantage an score a significant victory.
Going into the third round there are still 13 players on 2/2. There are still a number of important match ups on the top boards with the FM Bobby Cheng v GM Li Chao being the standout.
Also starting today will be the Major (Under 2000), Minor (Under 1600) and the Under 1200 event. All tournaments start a 1pm, and there will be live games and live blogging on the tournament website.


Solomon,Stephen - Van Wely,Loek [B85]
2013 O2C Doeberl Cup Sydney, 28.03.2013