2018 Australian Championships - Day 1

The 2018 Australian Championship began today, with most of the top seeds surviving a testing first round. The 34 player event saw a couple of upsets, with Arthur Huyhn beating IM Stephen Solomon, and FM Kevin O'Chee scoring a nice win over IM Gary Lane. On the other hand top seed GM Anton Smirnov had a fairly straight forward win over FM Michael Kethro, and IM Bobby Cheng rebuffed an ambitious attack by FM Zachary Loh.
The Reserves tournament attracted a field of 98 players, and the top seeds found it especially tough. Kevin Sheldrick drew on board 1 to Nicholas Johnson, while seeds 3 (WCM Phan Nguyen) and 4 (Nathan Hibberd) both went down.
The Classic saw a field of 65 players, with the top half scoring heavily. One exception was Sophie Davis defeating Patrick Beahan, a rating difference of 848 points.
Tomorrow is a double round day for all 3 events. Round two starts at 10:15am, with round 3 at 3:30 pm. The top 8 boards are being broadcast at Chess24, with the non broadcast games being available after the round is finished.


Huynh,Arthur (2042) - Solomon,Stephen J (2365) [D67]
2018 Australian Championship Sydney AUS (1.9), 02.01.2018