Return of the Pawn

The opening event of the 2017 ANU Open was held this evening at King O'Malley's in the centre of Canberra. The 2017 ACT Teams Blitz was won by the aptly named, Return of the Pawn, with 9/10. Board 1 for Return of the Pawn was William Booth, making a bit of a comeback to competition chess, and scoring 5/5. Partnered with Elwyn Teki, they drew with the top seeded Retired Gardeners team in the first round 1-1, and then won their remaining games.

The Retired Gardeners (Roger Farrell and Baldev Bedi) also went through the 5 round event undefeated, but dropped an important point to the 'Fear Itself' team (Miles Patterson and Stephen Priest) in round 4. The 8 team event was quite tough and a number of strong teams fell by the wayside.

Tomorrow sees the first day ANU Open and Minor, a the ANU School of Art. The action kicks off at 10 am, and entries are still open for interested players.