2017 NSW Open - 3 way tie for first

The 2017 NSW Open has ended in a 3 way tie for first place, with GM Max Illingworth, IM Andrew Brown and IM Gary Lane all finishing on 6/7. Illingworth and Lane shared the lead on 5.5 going into round 7, but drew their game, allowing Brown to catch them. after defeating FM Jason Hu on board 2. Tied for 4th place were GM Zong Yuan Zhao (who Illingworth defeated in Round 6), IM Anton Smirnov, and FM Brandon Clarke.
The Minor event (Under 1600) was won by Jigando Balin (IND) on 6.5/7. However, as he did not hold a local Australian rating, he was ineligble for the cash prizes, meaning Frank Jia on 6/7 took home first prize. Second prize (and third place) was shared by Mike Canfell, Eva Ge, and Michael Tracey, on 5.5.
The tournament attracted a good field of 142 players, with the new venue proving popular with most of the players. From an arbiters point of view, the tournament itself was easy to manage, although noise from the analysis/lounge area was difficult to control. There were also a number of slightly odd arbiting questions and incidents (nothing that serious), but I will leave the discussion of that for another post.
Final results for the tournament can be found at http://nswopen.nswca.org.au/