2016 ANU Open - Day 2

The 2016  ANU Open ended in a tie for first between two local IM's, Andrew Brown and Junta Ikeda. The two players drew their round 5 game, leaving Brown holding a half point lead with two rounds to play. But a marathon draw in round 6 between Brown and third seed Soumya Thakurta allowed Ikeda to catch up, and with both players winning their last round games, 6/7 was enough for both players to share the prize money. In terms of countback, Brown's faster start worked in his favour, and as a result he collected the first place trophy for the 4th straight year.
Thakurta drew with both tournament winners, but lost a further half point by taking a half point bye in round 4. Wenlin Yin scored 5/7 to pick up the Under 2000 prize, while Albert Winkelman (4.5), and Fred Litchfield (4) also ended up in the money.
In the Under 1600 tournament Wayne Grinyer overtook Mitchell Jones with a win in their round 7 clash. In the previous round Jones had been the recipient of some spectacular luck when Lee Forace thought his sacrificial attack had miscarried, and chose to resign instead of executing a forced mate in 3. Jones took a share of second with evergreen Bill Egan, while Forace bounced back from his disappointment with a last round win to finish on 5.
Final standings for the event (plus the top 4 games from the last round) can be seen at http://tournaments.streetchess.net/anu2016/


Thakurta,Soumya - Litchfield,Fred [A08]
2016 ANU Open Canberra (7.3), 31.07.2016

1. e4 e6 2. d3 d5 3. Nd2 Nf6 4. g3 c5 5. Bg2 Nc6 6. Ngf3 Be7 7. O-O O-O 8. Re1 Qc7 9. Nf1 a5 10. e5 Nd7 11. Bf4 b5 12. h4 Bb7 13. N1h2 d4 14. Ng5 Bxg5 15. hxg5 Ne7 16. Qh5 Rfb8 17. Ng4 Bxg2 18. Kxg2 Qc6+ 19. f3 Nf5 20. Nf6+ gxf6 21. gxf6 Kf8 22. Qxh7 Ke8 23. Qg8+ Nf8 24. Rh1 Qd5 25. Qxf8+ Kd7 26. Qxf7+ Kc6 27. Rh7 Kb6 28. Qc7+ Ka6 29. Rd7 Rb7 30. Qxb7+ 1-0