Wednesday 3 April 2013

2013 Sydney International Open - Day 1

The 2013 Sydney International Open began today, with 66 players in the Open, and 32 players in the Challengers. Due the early Easter dates, the event is being held outside of school/university holiday's, resulting in a large drop in entries. However the tournament has attracted 12 Grandmasters, a record for an Australian chess event. As in Canberra, Li Chao is the top seed, closely followed by Loek Van Wely.
Given the similarity of the field between the two tournaments it is hardly surprising that some repeat pairings have already occurred. Loek Van Wely reversed the result of his earlier game against Stephen Solomon by defeating him in tonights second round, while Anton Smirnov scored his second draw in a week against IM Somak Palit.
After 2 rounds 13 players are on a perfect score. Tomorrows round sees all GM pairings on the top 4 boards, which will be broadcast live on the tournament website. For those able to make it out to Parramatta, the round times are 10am and 4pm each day until Sunday.

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