Triple Tie for Bankstown Lightning

As if by fate, last night I did cross swords with our Polish visitor. He won. I did well enough, though, outplayed only in the tail-end of our game. So congrats to IM-elect Dariusz Swiercz who finished equal first on 8 points alongside IM George Xie and ex-Pinoy Ernesto Puzon.

Puzon had an eventful time. In the second round, he and opponent Pedro Kirchnei exchanged words during play. You see Pedro has this habit of taking back moves during friendly games and I guess that, for a moment, he must have forgotten where he was.

Kirchnei: "Wait."

Puzon: "This is lightning mate, there is no waiting!"

Then much later (I can't remember now which round), Puzon defeated IM Xie. He was pretty happy about that one: "I made him, I made him cry. That is enough for the night."

Twenty-two players attended the tournament, with three titled players in the list (Xie, Swiercz and Flatow). It was generally a friendly affair with no serious incidents. Top scorers are as follows:

8.0 Swiercz, Xie, Puzon
5.5 Huseyin
5.0 Kordahi, Rosario, Wong, Kirchnei, Jens, Lam
4.5 Flatow, Mitrovic, Chiara