2011 Vikings Weekender - Day 1

The first day of the 2011 Vikings Weekender saw 4 very tough rounds, at least for those who resisted the temptation to take a bye in the evening round. IM Andrew Brown is the only player with a perfect score, half a point ahead of FM Junta Ikeda, Blair Mandla and IM George Xie.

Local player Steven Sengstock created a sensation the 2nd round by holding Xie to a draw. Bishops of opposite colours frustrated Xie's attempts to find a win in the ending. Round 2 saw the interesting Smirnov v Smirnov pairing, with a draw agreed as most of the pieces disappeared from the board.
Former Australian Junior Champion Greg Melrose returned to the tournament scene with 3 straight wins, before going down to IM Andrew Brown in the 4th round. As a result Brown is up against top seed Xie in the 5th round, while Mandla and Ikeda meet on the second board.
Further down the list there a number of interesting games, non more so than the Setiabudi v Sidiqi games which resulted in the position shown in the diagram. A draw was agreed soon after.
A crosstable from the event is available at https://sites.google.com/site/chessatanu/home/current-tournaments/2011-vikings-weekender while the round 5 draw is available under Current Announcements link on that page.