Monday 6 April 2015

2015 O2C Doeberl Cup - Zhou wins

Chinese GM Weiqi Zhou has won the 2015 O2C Doeberl Cup, despite a last round loss to Indian GM Suriya Ganguly. Zhou played an attacking game as black, but when the smoke cleared he had sacrificed too much material and was left with Q+R against 2R and 3 minors. Ganguly quickly scored a win, which moved him into a tie for 2nd place on 7/9, alongside GM Darryl Johansen.  Tied for 4th place were GM Loek Van Wely, GM Bartlomiej Heberla and IM Igor Bjelobrk.
Zhou was the only player to go through the event undefeated No player went through the event undefeated, which shows how combative the tournament was. For the first time in a number of years no title norms were achieved either, as a number of upsets by lower rated players sabotaged the runs of various high flyers.
The Major (Under 2000) tournament saw a tie for first between David Cannon and Sarwat Rewais. Both had slow starts to the events, before running over the top of the leaders in the final round. Cannon won the Saint Memorial Trophy on countback, while Mike Duffin took home the third place trophy.
The Minor (Under 1600) was won by Zoe Harrison, half a point ahead of Oscar Herrmann, Mark Stokes and Erik Jochimsen. Harrison also picked up the Pooja Cup for best female junior in the tournament, repeating her win from last year.
This years tournament attracted 238 players across the 4 tournaments. This was down from last year, but was expected by the organisers as it was a non 'Kasparov' year. The move to the new venue (University House) proved a success as the playing areas were larger and quieter than last year, and the general surroundings seemed to fit in well with the tournament.
Full tournament results are available from www.doeberlcup.com.au You can also download a PGN file of games from the Premier. At this stage it does not contain all games (just the top boards) but will include all games in the near future.

Zhou,Weiqi - Heberla,Bartlomiej [D25]
O2C Doeberl Cup 2015 Canberra, Australia (8.1), 05.04.2015



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Zhou was undefeated?? I thought you said he lost to Ganguly in the last round.

Shaun Press said...

Article updated to reflect inability of author to read his own text!

Unknown said...

Congratulations GM Weiqi "Weaky" Zhou! Good results were also recorded by "The Bold Twig" and "The Herb". We are witnessing the 'Rise of the Orient' in the world of chess as well as well as high finance, art, and military might.
Verily 'The East' and the subcontinent are producing the finest chess players of our day and we are most fortunate to have them play in our antipodean, though very well run tournaments.
Thank you to all the administrators who made this possible. Good Lord, if it was up to me, I would knight you all!