Nations come together

The tournament that brings all the nations together and no we aren't talking about the Olympiad, but we are talking about the zonal championships.

The Open section attracting 56 players from Australia (AUS), host federation New Zealand (NZL), Fiji (FIJ) and Papua New Guinea (PNG). Two other nations that are part of the Oceania region, Palau (PLW) and Solomon Islands (SOL) didn't fill a player to represent them in the championships. Unfortunately not a big number in the Women's section with only 11 players from Australia, New Zealand and Fiji which is now resulting in a round robin.

In the Open section we have had a few upsets already and only 4 rounds have been played. A lot of the top seeds have conceded points. Just by having a look at the standings after round 4 will give you some indication.

 
  
  1   Zhao, Zong-Yuan       AUS   2586 2579 gm    4    
  2   Illingworth, Max      AUS   2311 2284 fm    3.5  
3-15  Brown, Andrew         AUS   2175 2168       3    
      Stevens, Tristan      AUS   2050 2004       3    
      Lane, Gary W          AUS   2373 2319 im    3    
      Schon, Eugene         AUS   2157 2153       3    
      Ly, Moulthun          AUS   2321 2288       3    
      Ansell, Alan          NZL   2001 1884       3    
      Ikeda, Junta          AUS   2262 2238 fm    3    
      Cheng, Bobby          AUS   2335 2207 fm    3    
      Smerdon, David C      AUS   2531 2488 gm    3    
      Morris, James         AUS   2270 2190 im    3    
      Smith, Robert W       NZL   2287 2289 fm    3    
      Feldman, Vladimir     AUS   2262 2181 im    3    
      Reilly, Tim           AUS   2276 2358 fm    3 

  

It shapes up to be a tough tournament and anyone can get still get the IM and FM titles that are up for grabs.
The top players from Papua New Guinea and Fiji are as follows:

       Kumar, Manoj          FIJ   2011 1859       2
       Marcos, Joselito      PNG   2095 1747       2



   

The Women's section is pretty one sided and doesn't have last zonal's winner, WIM Arianne Caoili participating in the event but we do have another new player, WIM Biljana Dekic though, who surprisingly is leading the tournament. Below are the standings of the tournament after 5 rounds:

  1   Dekic, Biljana          AUS   2095 1949 wim   4.5  
 2-3  Berezina-Feldman, Irina AUS   2238 2047 im    4    
      Guo, Emma               AUS   1969 1856 wfm   4    
  4   Smith, Vivian           NZL   1810 1571       2.5  
 5-8  Tsoi, Nicole            NZL   1675 1417       2    
      Drastik, Penelope       AUS        1533       2    
      Setiabudi, Megan        AUS   1627 1397       2    
      Wijesuriya, Vineetha    AUS   1892 1696       2    
9-10  Gao, Judy               NZL   1914 1616       1    
      Chai, Hweimeen          AUS        1550       1    
 11   Vukikomoala, Hilda      FIJ                   0   

Anyone can still get the WFM title, which there is 2 been awarded, but there is only one person I think will get the WIM title and that is WFM Emma Guo.

Stay tuned in the coming days as I will be publishing some games from both the Open section and the Women's section.