Oz players take Doeberl

Benefiting from the SIO commencing at Parramatta tomorrow, the Doeberl Cup was able to attract 8 GMs for the first time in the tournament's history. The results spoke well for the strength of Oz chess: GM Ian Rogers, with 6/7, finished ahead of a triumvirate of Australian IMs Stephen Solomon, David Smerdon and Gary Lane, all on 5.5.
Behind them on 5 points were GMs Mikhalevski, Matamoros Franco, Antic, and Shipov who shared 5-12 place with Sales, Toth, Stojic, and the improving ACT junior, Junta Ikeda who counted three GMs among his opponents and managed a win, a loss and a draw against them.

The Major was won by Adrian de Noskowski of the ACT with 6.5/7 ahead of Sherab Guo-Yuthok and Richard Voon. Rooty Hill's Joshua Christensen scored a creditable 4/7. He won the Minor here last year.

The Minor went to Jonathan Shen also with 6.5/7 just half a point clear of Campbelltown Chess Nut Trent Parker.

There were some interesting performance ratings in the Doeberl. Jonathan Paxman, posting on Chess Chat Forum, gives these figures:
"Solo performance rating: 2690. Smerdon: 2595, worth another 10 rating points or so - probably only 15 points or so away from the magic 2500 now. Ikeda: 2519! And not least, of course Rogers 2716." (See the whole thread here: http://chesschat.org/showthread.php?t=5688&page=6)

For full Doeberl Cup details, results and cross tables, visit Ian Rout's web page here: http://www.netspeed.com.au