IM James Morris looks well placed to win his first O2C Doeberl Cup after scoring 2 wins in rounds 7 & 8. He now leads the event with 7/8, half a point ahead of GM Surya Ganguly, who he drew with in Round 4. Standing in his way in round 9 is IM Anton Smirnov, who lead the event early, but is now on 6. Ganguly is up against GM ong Yuan Zhao on board 2, while GM Hrant Melkuyan and IM Igor Bjelobrk play on the third board.
Despite Morris' stellar performance, a GM norm is out of reach due to the lack of foreign players in his field. He has only played 3, rather than the required 4, and so the norm does not count. His chances were not helped by the withdrawal of IM Kanan Izzat (AZE), who decided not to continue playing after his round 6 loss to WIM Heather Richards. Richards herself is also having a strong event, scoring 4.5/8 and 2/4 against the IM's she has played.
Today's round starts at 9:30am and you can follow the action through the tournament website www.doeberlcup.com.au
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11 comments:
Ban Kanan Izzat from the future tournaments. He did't want to play on because he lost to a woman.
That's a bit harsh. Surely a title swap would suffice.
Many players, including grandmasters on more occasions that I can count, will withdraw after losing early in a Swiss. Unless he is being paid an appearance fee, it's probably even the rational thing to do in many cases. The fact that he lost to a woman is irrelevant to the calculus, and the implied misogyny is just a slander against him and the Azerbaijani people.
Are you assuming he is not from Azerbaijan? Was there a handshake?
wins aus championship but he can't finish this event this is disrespect to our scene
There was a handshake, Kanan is very respectful, just was having a horrible tournament
if a handshake did occur, the blogger was seriously unfair towards Kanan
chessexpress not the comments
the discussion is warranted but is within anyone's right to withdraw if they want to
It is fairly pathetic for an IM/GM to drop out mid tournament
On a different topic,
Why do we have to subscribe ( pay money ) to get access to the tournament games
Premier/major/minor when they have been recorded electronically?
Puzzled
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