2018 Australian Championship - Day 3

GM Max Illingworth is the outright leader in the 2018 Australian Championship, after 4 rounds of play. Today he beat IM George Xie in a tactical game to move half a point of closest rivals, GM Anton Smirnov and IM Ari Dale, who drew their top board clash.
There were a number of tough games further down, with wins to GM Moulthun Ly, IM James Morris, IM Bobby Cheng and GM Gene Nakauchi moving them to a share of 4th place with 3/4. Round 5 will see Dale play Illingworth on board 1, with Morris against Smirnov on board 2.
CM Tom Slater-Jones and CM  Vishal Baht share the lead in the Reserves tournament with 4/4. They play on the top board in round 5. Just behind on 3.5 is a group of 4 players, including Tom's brother Henry.
With 2 rounds to play in the Classic, David Lovejoy and Kevin Shen share the lead with 4.5/5. They play in tomorrows 6th round, with the winner looking good to take out first place. A draw would even throw the event wide open, as there are a further 6 players tied for third on 4/5.
The start time for all events tomorrow is 1pm. The top 8 boards of the championship are being broadcast via Chess24, while the top 2 boards of the Reserves can be seen at http://auschess.org.au/acf/live-games/online-dgt-room-e/


Illingworth,Max (2494) - Xie,George Wendi (2369) [A45]
2018 Australian Championship Sydney (4.2), 04.01.2018