Monday 26 January 2015

2015 Australian Junior Champion - Yi Liu

Yi Liu is the new Australian Junior Champion, after finishing the Under 18 section with 8/9. He went through the tournament undefeated, conceding draws to 2nd seed Pengy Chen and 3rd seed Max Chew Lee, while beating everyone else. Despite going into the final round with the title already confirmed, he still played a very sharp game against Chew Lee, the game ending with a repetition.
Pengyu Chen finished second on an undefeated 7/9, but conceded too may early draws to challenge for first. The best local player was Michael Kethro who finished in outright 3rd with 6/9.
Patrick Gong was the winner of a competitive Under 16 event, needing 8.5/9 just to stay half a point ahead of Tom Maguire who chased him all the way to the finish. Kristine Quek hung on to win the Under 18 Girls title, after stumbling in the 2nd last round. Her last round win kept her half a point ahead of Denise Lim who also finished the tournament with a win. The Under 14 Girls event was won by Cassandra Lim, who only dropped half a point on her way to 8.5/9.
The Under 14 Open saw another 8.5/9 winner, in this case Haran Salasan, whose round 3 win over Ray Yang turned out to be the deciding game of the tournament.
The Under 12 event was the only tournament requiring a playoff, with Matthew Clarke and Jason Wang tied on 7.5/9. They drew the 15m playoof games 1-1, and the 5m playoff games with the same score. In the final 'Armageddon' game, Ray Yanf (White) knocked back a cheeky draw offer from Clarke to win the game, and the title.
Full results from the tournament can be found at www.ajcc.org.au, along with photos and games from the event. Although the organisers (including myself) are totally exhausted from running the 9 day championship, we hope to have more pictures, and game scores posted to the website in the next few days.

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