IM Igor Bjelobrk is the winner of the 2022 NSW Open, with an impressive 6.5/7. He won his first 6 rounds, and then played out a tough final round draw against close rival IM Junta Ikeda. Ikeda had drawn with Jack Rodgers back in round 3, and so they avoided playing each other until the last round. The draw left Ikeda tied for 2nd on 6 points with FM Yi Liu, who recovered from a round 4 loss to Sam Asaka to win his remaining games.
In the Minor event, Kamal Jain won in a similar way to Bjelobrk, starting with 6 wins before drawing his last round games. There was a 3 way tie for 2nd with Stephen Hemsley, Shane Dibley and Kotaro Inukai all scoring 5.5.
The 150 player event ran pretty smoothly, although the issue of withdrawals and half point byes did pop up. The Sunday night round (round 5) saw around 20% of the Open field take a half point bye, which does indicate the 3 rounds on Sunday is too much for some. There is discussion of starting the tournament on the Friday evening, and then having 2 rounds on the following 3 days.
Results of the Open can be found at http://chess-results.com/tnr646116.aspx?lan=1
Results of the Minor can be found at http://chess-results.com/tnr646116.aspx?lan=1
1 comment:
So what if 20% took a bye, 80% didn’t and played
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