Igor Bjelobrk Wins Oz Day

FM Igor Bjelobrk has recovered some of his form and today won the NSWCA Australia Day Weekender with a score of 6.5 from seven games. En route to first prize, Igor defeated GM Dejan Antic and IM George Xie.

In outright second place and scoring 6 points was IM Xie. He, too, defeated GM Antic in an exciting last round encounter. With less than a minute left on his clock, Antic lost a vital piece but opted to hang on hoping no doubt for some trickery to bless his way. But Xie was careful and having none of it forcing the GM to finally capitulate.

"Finally, I get some my money to fill up my petrol," said Xie later.

I don't have all the results but here are some preliminary top standings that I quickly jotted down.

6.5 Bjelobrk
6.0 Xie
5.5 Hu, Rej, Sales
5.0 Broekhuyse, Norman, Bolens

Canberra's Mos Ali won the U1800 first prize. Lucky guy. He turned up late to the fifth round apparently because he'd taken the wrong turn somewhere and got lost! Upon arrival at the venue, he had only 6 minutes left. He managed to draw that game.

As for TCG, well, I scored an OK 4 points. It was enough to take home $36, a portion of my money back, so I can't really complain.