Saturday, April 14, 2007

Antic and Timoshenko Top SIO!

News just in: grandmasters Dejan Antic and Georgy Timoshenko have finished on 7.5 points apiece to split $7,500. However, standard tiebreaks will be applied to decide the recipient of the winner's medal.

Timoshenko drew with Mikhalevski in the final round while Antic defeated GM Murray Chandler.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

And of course a credible performance by Matthew Sweeney who despite being dogged by bad luck in this tournament, particularly in round 9 vs Tsagarakis, finished ahead of Robert Hvistendal and Gary Becker both who are internationally rated.
Unbelievable and, of course shameful, that this Woolongong "powerhouse" was banned from playing chess for a short period of time for no reason by the NSWCA.
Well done Matthew!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations to Matthew.

Not so sure about the powerhouse bit though,and didnt Gary Bekker forfeit the last 2 rounds?

Anyway,with his "enforced absence" the Glicko system if it is applied correctly by Mr Gletsos should see Matthew gain a considerable amount of rating points.

Anonymous said...

Powerhouse??? lol

Anonymous said...

Yeah, the traetment of Sweeney by the NSWCA has been disgraceful. I mean, the guy served out a lengthy 18+ month ban and then was expected to send some sort of apology before he could be allowed back in? Looks like shifting the goal posts to me. Surely 18+ months is long enough? If I was in Sweeney's position, I would have done the same as he has, as the sentence has been served. I reckon that even if Sweeney had apologised, some other excuse would have been found to continue Sweeney's ban. It was great to catch up with Matthew at the SIO, and I reckon it is shameful of the NSWCA to have taken the action they did.

Anonymous said...

While on the subject of the NSWCA. Let's hope that they learn't something from the excellently run SIO and took advice from Brian Jones on how to run chess tournaments. Especially how to get bums on seats. NSWCA weekend tournaments are just so depressing and uninspiring at the moment, and have been for many months. It is no surprise to me that numbers are low at NSWCA events.

Anonymous said...

The future of NSW chess is not in the weekenders but in the Junior tournaments! While the One and Two Day Tournaments keep getting 250+ people every time, the weekenders are struggling to get 30.

Anonymous said...

Hi there, Thanks for your commentary on the SIO. It was a wonderful event to play in but, despite the fantastic preparation prior to the event, it was hard to find much on-the-spot commentary.

What did you think about the norm situation at the SIO? I thought only one IM norm result from a 143 player field was disappointing. Would accelerated pairings for, say, the first two rounds work or are there hidden fish-hooks? Cheers, 2000(ish) player