Saturday, 7 March 2015

2015 ACT Championship - Thrills and spills

The 2015 ACT Chess Championship began tonight, and the first round saw a number of upsets. While the tournament is missing the absolute top tier of ACT chess, there field was still quite strong by Canberra standards.
But once the first round started it seemed the form guide went out the window. The first higher rated player to fall was Matt Radisich who lasted 13 moves against unrated Neetash Mathur. Even more surprising, was Adrian De Noskowski getting mated in 16 moves against Indis Danaswara. Looking up from my arbiters desk I saw them resetting the board and simply assumed it was a routine top half v bottom half win. It was only when I entered the game that I discovered otherwise.
After that some semblance of order was restored, with the higher rated players picking up points. Then in the junior clash between Dillon Hathiramani and Albert Winkelman, a single miscalculation by Hathiramani in a winning position cost him a whole rook, and the game. And in the final ame to finish, Ziqi Yuan drew with Alana Chibnall, after holding an advantage for a lot of the game.
With so many upsets it is already possible to say that this years event is a wide open one. With no clear cut rating favourite, the title is likely to go to the player who can keep their head when all around are losing theirs.
Results from the tournament can be seen at chess-results.com. Most of the games from the first round can also be download from this link. *NB Players can still enter this tournament, with a half point bye for the first round


Danaswara,Indis - De Noskowski,Adrian (1851) [B30]
2015 ACT Championship Canberra, Australia (1.5), 06.03.2015





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