IM Junta Ikeda is now the outright leader of the 2021 ACT Chess Championship, with 5 wins from 5 games. He won an exciting game against 2nd seed Fred Litchfield in the 5th round, leaving him a point ahead of the pack. The win was even more noteworthy as Ikeda played with the black pieces, due to a misunderstanding about the pairings. This started when Litchfield won his 4th round game against CM Hui Li after Li failed to appear before the forfeit time. Going into the 5th round Ikeda and Litchfield were the only players on 4 points, and knew they should play each other. However they assumed that Litchfield was to be white (based on their respective colour history), overlooking that defaulted games do not count for colour. Of course I failed to check the pairing, and it was well after the 10 move mark (up until when games can be restarted) that I realised what had happened. Even more bizarrely, defaulted games don't count as played games, so Litchfield is paired with CM Hui Li again, this time in round 6!
In the chasing pack on 4 are Litchfield, Li, Miles Patterson, WFM Alana Chibnall, Wenlin Yin, and Adrian de Noskowski. Safron Archer (3.5) is currently the best placed of the junior players, while Octogenarian Thomas Mautner is enjoying his comeback to competitive chess, with decent score of 3/5.
The final 2 rounds are tomorrow at 10am and 2:30pm and are being played at Campbell High School, Treloar Cres, Campbell, ACT.
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