2018 Chessexpress Player of the Year

After skipping this award last year, I made sure to have a look at various performances of Australian players in 2018, so as not to forget two years in a row.
Once again a number of players had excellent performances. both locally and internationally, and it could have gone to any of them. But as in past years I also look at a unique or special achievement within the last 12 months to help me decide.
Based on this, the 2018 Chessexpress Player of the Year award goes to GM Justin Tan. Justin, who I think gets a little overlooked in Australia, earned his GM title not once, but twice! At first it was though his performance in the 4NCL was enough for his final norm, only to have it rejected on technical grounds. He then went and won the 2018 Paracin Open with 7.5/9, which did earn him his final norm. He also scored an undefeated 5.5/9 in the British Championship, and just today finished in third place at the Australian Open. 
So congratulations to GM Justin Tan for a successful 2018.

2019 Sydney International Open

I'm pleased to announce that the 2019 Macquarie University Chess Festival will be taking place from the 24th to the 28th of April 2019. The headline event for this tournament will be the resurrected Sydney International Open, which previously ran from 2007 to 2014.
The 2019 event has come about do the the generous sponsorship of the NSW Chess Association, and the Macquarie University Chess Club. The Chess Festival begins 2 days after the finish of the 2019 O2C Doeberl Cup, and as such, there will be a number of overseas GMs and IMs playing in both events.
Alongside the Open will be the Peter Parr Memorial Challengers (for Under 2000 players). and a Junior Rapidplay on Saturday and Sunday morning (before the main rounds).
Details of the event can be found at sio.nswca.org.au At this stage there are some details still to be finalised, but for now, you can schedule your chess holidays for late April!

(* Disclaimer: I am part of the organising team for this event *)

Hastings 2018-19

Open swisses can be a little tricky for top seeds in the first round, doubly so if accelerated pairings are used. Hastings is one tournament that does use them, and as a result, the first round saw many dropped half points and points. One player who got caught out big time was GM Simon Williams, who went down quite quickly to his FM opponent. Another player who found the going tough was former Doeberl Cup winner GM Stefan Djuric, who was held to a draw by his 2100 rated opponent.
Hastings, which is one of my favourite events, has attracted a mixed field of European GM's and local English players. Interestingly, the usual large contingent of Indian players is missing this year, possibly lured away by competing events.
The first round of the event was yesterday and it runs until the 6th of January. The tournament website is http://www.hastingschess.com/ and contains all the usual links to coverage and results.


WILLIAMS, Simon K (2472) - WILLOW, Jonah B (2218)
Hastings Masters 2018-19 (Horntye Sports Centre, Bohemia Road, TN34 1EX, Hastings), 28.12.2018

2019(?) Australian Open

The 2019 Australian Open has has begun in Ashwood, Melbourne, and has attracted a massive field of 300+ players. I'm pretty sure this is a record for this tournament, although the early 2000's the tournament was often run in a single section.
The Open field is 167 strong, with GM Anton Smirnov as the top seed, with GM's Justin Tan, Vasily Papin and Darryl Johansen as the other GM's in the field. There are 11 IM's and the top 9 seeds are rated above 2400.
The first round didn't see too many upsets on the top boards, with WGM Julia Ryjanova the highest seeded player held to a draw and  CM Tony Davis the only higher seeded player to lose.
One possible reason for the large numbers is the event has been compressed into 5 days. It runs until the 31st December 2018, which means that the 2019 title holder will be determined before the end of 2018 (hence the question mark in the heading). While the organisers can regard this as a successful outcome for the event (especially as no one else wished to host it), it does reduce the significance of the title somewhat.
The event homepage is at https://sites.google.com/view/aus-open-chess-2019/home and you can follow various links to pairings and live (if intermittent) coverage.

2018 World Rapid and Blitz

The 2018 World Rapid and Blitz is beginning tomorrow (Canberra Time). The event is being held in St Petersburg, with play from the 26th to the 30th. The first 3 days see the 15 round rapid being decided (5 rounds per day), with the blitz then running for 2 days. Magnus Carlsen is the top seed.
Play begins 3pm local time, which is 11pm Canberra time. The time limit for the rapid is 15m+10s, so I suspect each round will start on the hour, with the days play finishing around 4am.
The official website is http://wrbc2018.com/en/ and there will be links to live coverage of the games.

A gift for Christmas

While the following game was not played in Christmas Day, it was played at the Hastings Christmas Congress, and it involved White giving Black a very generous gift. Having built up a beautiful attack, Flohr threw away the full point with one move (24.Nd8 instead of 24.Nxg7), and then donated the other half point with 25.Rg4.

Flohr,Salo - Fine,Reuben [D61]
Christmas Congress 1935/36-16 Premier Hastings White Rock Pavilion (1), 27.12.1935

Smirnov wins Australasian Masters

GM Anton Smirnov has won the 2018 Australasian Masters, with an impressive  score of 7.5/9. Australia's Number 1 player was undefeated, with 6 wins and 3 draws. In second place was IM Bobby Cheng, who scored 6.5/9, which was enough for his third and final GM norm. He was only beaten by Smirnov, winning 5 and drawing 3 of his remaining games. The other good performance in hits event was by FM Karl Zelesco, who finished on 4.5, which was enough for his third and final IM norm.
IM Ari Dale finished first in the IM event, also scoring an unbeaten 7.5/9. FM Brandon Clarke was the third player to earn a title norm, scoring 7/9 to pick up his second IM norm.
Three norms is quite an impressive strike rate for a single event, as is two Australian players earning titles on the same day. Cheng becomes the 10th Australian player to become a GM, while Zelesco continues the run of young Australian players earning the IM title.


Cheng,Bobby (2510) - Kvon,Andrey (2509) [E91]
2018 Australasian Masters GM Norm Tourna Melbourne (9.2), 23.12.2018