First round dangers

If you have enough players sitting down to play chess, there is a good chance that at least some games won't go according to rating. And when most of those players are rated above 2000, then the chances of this happening are obviously increased.
The first round of the Gibraltar Masters saw this in spades where lower rated players proved to be quite a handful for their higher rated opponents. Top seed Lev Aronian was held to a draw by Anita Gara, while a number of GM's ended up on the wrong end of the scoreboard against non-GM opponents.
From an Australian point of view the most outstanding result was WIM Heather Richards beating GM Alexandra Kosteniuk. Richards did not seem overawed by her opponent, taking the fight to her right out of the opening, and capitalising on a blunder by Kosteniuk to win the exchange. Then it was a matter of converting this advantage into the full point, which Richards did after 5 hours of play.


Kosteniuk,Alexandra (2561) - Richards,Heather S (2223) [A00]
Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival 2018 Caleta Hotel, Gibraltar (1.52), 23.01.2018