While arbiting at the recent Australian Championship, I kept a special eye on the players from Canberra who took part in the various events. The ACT has always punched well above it's weight in Australian chess, and this year was no exception. Three ACT players took part in the Championship itself (IM Andrew Brown, FM Michael Kethro and Albert Winkelman) which is not a bad number considering the ACT makes up 1.6% of the Australian population. Andrew Brown finished in a tie for 8th place, while Michael Kethro (5/11) and Albert Winkelman (4.5/11) did not do so badly.
In the Reserves event Willis Lo finished in 2nd place, after going down in the final round. He started the event seeded 22nd, and had a particularly impressive second half of the event.
In the Classic event Matt Radisich surprised even himself by finishing in third place, going through the tournament undefeated to finish on 5.5/7.
And finally, Fred Litchfield had a strong Blitz championship beating IM Stephen Solomon, FM Jack Puccini, and IM Leonid Sandler to score an impressive 7/11.
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ACT is placed geographically very well - between two biggest cities. It makes easier to organize strong tournaments, etc.
If you look in Europe some relatively small countries (Armenia with 3 mln and Norway with 5 mln) are placed very highly (10 and 22 among all countries). So the geography is one of the most important characteristics of chess development.
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