Ian Rogers Defeats Dutchman

A very good day out of chess for the 4 Australians in Hoogeven last night in their 6th round assignments. None of them dropped a full point. On board 4, Ian Rogers defeated ninth seed GM Jan Werle in a long struggle lasting 85 moves. Rogers' h-pawn was crucial in the endgame phase as it threatened to promote. This forced the Dutchman to ditch his only remaining piece and, therefore, also the game.



Rogers goes up to board 2 in the seventh round to face second seed 2632-rated GM Ivan Cheparinov of Bulgaria.

After beating Ian Rogers in round 2, local FM Babak Tondivar must have been looking forward to his second Australian victim. But I bet that the Australian crew were all hands on deck to help Moulthun Ly produce something special and bring home the point. Indeed, the young Queenslander was the first to deviate from theory with the spine-tingling 7. g4. Ly forced Tondivar's resignation by the 49th move and sets up a date with Russian grandmaster Yury Piskov in the seventh round.

The two other Australian games ended in draws: Weeks with Van Geffen and Smerdon with Hoeksema.

Scores for the Australians at the 6th round mark are:

Rogers, 5 (currently in joint first with Brodsky and Goloshchapov)
Smerdon and Ly, 3,5
Weeks, 2

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