2013 Sydney International Open - Day 5

GM Loek Van Wely defeated GM SP Sethuraman in the final round of the 2013 Sydney International Open, to take first place by half a point. Van Wely was able to convert a seemingly drawn double rook ending into a tournament winning position, after marching his king to the centre of the board. The win kept him half a point ahead of top seed Li Chao, after Chao beat Australia's newest IM Bobby Cheng. A draw between GM's Jiri Stocek and Adam Horvath was enough for a share of third place for both players, while the larger group of players tied for 5th included 12 year old Anton Smirnov, who had secured his first IM norm the previous day.
In the Challengers event Arif Hassani was a somewhat surprising winner after previous leader Joseph Nguyen lost his second game in a row. Apparently Nguyen had turned down a draw offer from Hassani in their round 8 game, which if accepted, would have secured outright first with a round to spare. Hassani then won that game, and finished half a point in front after Nguyen lost his last round game to veteran Dick Voon.
The Challengers event had a somewhat amusing finish with the two players in the last game of the tournament playing 83 moves after the last pawn move or capture. Eventually one player decided a pawn move was ok, resetting the 50 move count. After another long series of moves, more material was exchanged, before a loss of a pawn by one player encouraged an eventual resignation. After the game both players admitted that they were unaware of the '50 move' rule.


Sethuraman,S.P (2541) - Van Wely,Loek (2684) [E32]
2013 Sydney International Open (9.1), 07.04.2013