IM Junta Ikeda has taken the outright lead in the 2023 ANU Open. He scored another 3 wins today, including an important Round4 victory over third seed Harry Press. He is half a point ahead of 2nd seed FM Fred Litchfield, after Litchfield took a bye for the evening round. As Litchfield is the only player on 3.5, he faces Ikeda in the morning round.
In third place are Press, Terrence Tang, Harvey Zhu and Leiming Yu. Yu has been the real surprise of this event, scoring 3/4 against players rated 500 points ahead of him. He faces Tang in round 5, and based on current form, has good chances to go into the final round on 4/5.
In the Minor (Under 1600), it is the unrated players setting the pace. Matthew Dwyer is on 4/4, half a point ahead of Andrew Blakers on 3.5. Also sharing 2nd are junior players Eshaan Extross and Leon Sostaric. Blakers, who won the ACT Junior Championship in 1973(!) is making a competitive comeback after 50 years, having been one of Australia's leading researchers in Solar energy systems.
Tomorrow mornings round starts at 10am, with the final round at 2pm. Live coverage of the top 4 boards can be found at the results link, which is http://tournaments.streetchess.net/ANU2023/
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