But he equalised, and on move 30 it looked like the game would be a draw but Junta kept trying to win! This turned out to be ill-judged, as he lost all his pawns and was dead lost by move 53. From there queens came off, and Junta was struggling in the ending due to his overextended pawns. Lalit did a good job equalising with a Sicilian as Black, already slightly better by move 15. But he kept fighting – and somehow managed to draw this anyhow! All very exciting – yet it still paled into insignificance compared to the events on top board… See game below. But the other draw was much more eventful! Roland Brockman had done well to reach a drawn rook and pawn ending against the higher seeded Matt Radisich but then he moved his king to the wrong square, lost all his pawns and finally found himself defending rook against rook and two connected passed pawns. The result was that the top four were already playing among themselves in Round 2 on Saturday morning! Michael Kethro and Fred Litchfield both played solidly and agreed a draw fairly early on, perhaps conserving energy and unwilling to take any risks so early in the event. No real surprises in Round 1 here: there were a couple of half point byes (so only five games), and the top seeds all won fairly comfortably. Played in the library at Campbell High School – a little remote, but a nice and comfortable venue nonetheless – both events were both ACF and FIDE rated, at a Fischer time control of 60 minutes each plus 30 seconds per move from the start. Led by top seed IM Junta Ikeda, the top five seeds were all ACF rated over 2000 second seed Fred Litchfield, third seed Michael Kethro, fourth seed Lalit Prasad and fifth seed Arthur Huynh were bound to produce a highly competitive event! The same was true of the Minor (Under 1600) event, where a 27 player field saw top seed Nick Beare and second seed Kamal Jain as the only players ACF rated over 1500. But this year they were both on duty as arbiters in India for the Olympiad, and so the good folk from the ACT Chess Association (ACTCA), headed by Cam Cunningham, Paul Dunn and Shun Ikeda, asked me instead – and I was more than happy to oblige!Īs this was just my second trip out of Sydney in well over two years (the previous one was to the World Seniors in Bucharest in November 2019), I was really looking forward to the event! The last one was also in the ACT – the Doeberl Cup over Easter last year, a fantastic event… Anyway, having made the trip to Canberra for a Friday night round for the first time, I was a bit disappointed there were only 12 players in the Open event.
With extremely competent and experienced local arbiters in IAs Shaun Press and Alana Chibnall, this was not a problem. So it was rebranded as the Canberra Winter Open and Minor, and played over the last couple of years as principally a local event. The Dedicated Dozen! A Report on the 2022 Canberra Winter Open & Minor by DOP Charles ZworestineĬOVID has had a devastating effect on most Australian chess events over the past two to three years – and the ANU Open is no exception! A tournament which used to get around 100 players (across an Open and a Minor event) lost its venue, as the ANU became very cautious and would only let in its own (staff and students).
Venue: Campbell High School, Treloar Cres Campbell ACT Round 5 Sun 31st 10am, Round 6 2pm Prize giving 6pmĮntry Fee: $80 ($60 concession) - GM, IM, WGM and WIM Free Round 2 Sat 30th 10am, Rd 3 2pm, Round 4, 6pm Time control: 60m+30s inc (FIDE Rated except for players 2400+)
29-31 July (One round Friday evening, three Saturday, two Sunday)įormat: Open section and Under 1600 Section (ACF)
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