Saturday 28 January 2023

Kuybokarov and Ryjanove win 3.6 Zonal events

 GM Temur Kuybokarov and WGM Julia Ryjanova have won the Open and Womens Zone 3.6 Championship. While Ryjanova won her event outright (8/9), Kuybokarov had to win a playoff against IM Gary Lane to claim the title.

Going into the final round GM Zong Yuan Zhao held a half point lead over the field, but IM Stephen Solomon threw the tournament wide open after beating Zhao. One the other results had come in, there was a 6 way tie for first, involving Kuybokarov, Lane, FM Patrick Gong, FM Yi Liu, Solomon, and IM James Morris (all on 7.5). The playoff was between the top 2 finishers on count back (Kuybokarov and Lane), which Kuybokarov won 2-0. FM Patrick Gong finished 3rd on tie-break, but as it was part of a tie for first, he received the IM title. Liu was unlucky in this regard, missing out on the title by a very narrow margin.

Ryjanova needed at least half a point to ensure 1st place but made sure of it by beating WFM Kristine Quek to finish half a point ahead of WGM Jilin Zhang. WFM Vyanla Punsalan finished 3rd on tie-break, to earn a WIM norm.

Apart from the winners, who qualified for the next World Cup, the remaining interest was in seeing who could earn various direct titles. It turns out quite a lot, although in a large number of cases, there will still be rating requirements that have to be met.

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