2013 O2C Doeberl Cup - Day 5

The cream rose to the top in the 2013 O2C Doeberl Cup Premier, with the top 8 seeds occupying the top 4 boards in the 9th round. GM Zong Yuan Zhao's game got off to a less than perfect start when the car bringing him to the venue ran out of petrol, and he (plus 3 other players) had to walk/run/jog the last 2 kilometres to the venue. He made it 25 minutes after the start of the round (and 5 minutes before the default time). Choosing the 4.Bf4 line against the Gruenfeld did not did not give him any opening advantage, and top seed Li Chao slowly ground him down to finish the game shortly before move 40. GM SP Sethuraman had led the tournament from the start, but lost to a determined Loek Van Wely on board 2. This win elevated Van Wely into a tie for second, and dropped the Indian GM back to 4th. Czech GM Jiri Stocek beat GM Vajda Levente to take a share of second, while GM Adam Horvath won the all Hungarian match up with a win over GM Atilla Czebe.
IM Moulthun Ly was the top scoring Australia player with 6.5/9, while New Zealand Junior Luke Li scored his first IM norm with a win over IM Somak Palit. Mongolian WFM Sengeravden Otgonjargal scored a WGM norm, after drawing with GM Darryl Johansen in the final round. Unfortunately the last minute loss of a number of overseas players meant that the tournament fell short of the required number of foreign players needed to remove federation restrictions, cruelling the norm chances of  Anton Smirnov and Tingjie Lei.
Andrew Saint proved a popular winner of the Major (Under 2000) tournament, defeating Dimitry Partsi in the final round. Jeremey Reading finished second, while Alana Chibnall took outright third. A win by Kashish Christian on the top board of the Minor (Under 1600) allowed her to overtake Aelfric Gardiner-Garden, while David Cannon also won his final round game to tie for first place.
Full result from all the tournaments can be found on the tournament website, while chess-results.com also has the standings for the Premier and the Major.


Zong Yuan,Zhao - Li,Chao [D82]
2013 O2C Doeberl Cup Canberra, 01.04.2013