The crucial pairing of this round was the much anticipated showdown between Scott Stewart and top seed Jing Jia. Once again, Scott wheeled out the archaic Centre Game (1. e4 e5 2. d4); Jing kept a pawn from the opening but conceded the bishop pair and some space. Black seemed quite comfortable going into the middle game until Scott launched a counterattack which caused enough confusion for Jing to fall into mate in 2 in Scott’s time pressure! A fatal blow for the top seed who is now out of the running for the champions title.

Clint Stewart versus Peter Lumsdon was a Sicilian Najdorf – poison pawn variation and as with most of Clint’s games was very complicated. White seemed unable to keep a handle on the complexities and shed material to be the exchange and 2 pawns down and short of time as well. From here the game became somewhat surreal, with Peter blitzing out his moves in an effort to rush Clint into mistake. Instead, he committed a catastrophic blunder himself to drop a piece, then another to give up the exchange as well and thus Peter registered a painful loss instead of the expected win.

Judd Madden played Rob Bailey and black defended with the Petroff Defence (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6). Neither player seemed to gain much from the opening. Judd, pushing for a win, offered the “exchange” on move 20, only to discover a big hole in his combination. To his dismay, he found that he’d merely given away a rook and resigned shortly after.

The game of the round was undoubtedly that between veterans Kevin Perrin and John Lavery. A French Defence, advance variation (1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5) white got lost in the theory and made a slight error, giving John sustained pressure that yielded him a piece after a neat combination. A beautiful position positional miniature.

Jamie Brotheridge destroyed the Kings Indian of the now thoroughly demoralised John Frangakis. John is staring at a disastrous 0/13 result.

Patrick Cook versus Mitchel Bailey was postponed to allow the round 7 game Charlie Andrews versus Mitchel Bailey. Charlie surprised everyone with Bird’s Opening. Static pawn structures and a trading off of pieces resulted in an even middle game with queens and rooks still on the board. In the ensuring endgame, Mitchel spurned numerous drawing opportunities to hand Charlie a vital win. He retains a theoretical chance at the title.

The scheduled Round 11 game Patrick Cook versus Mitchel Bailey was played a few evenings later. Predictably, it was a Larsens opening and proved to be a short painless draw, neither player wishing to stretch on the night.

One other game was finished during the week. The adjourned game Jing Jia versus Mitchel Bailey from round 9 was resumed. Mitchel had spent a good deal of time analysing the adjourned position, only to find upon resumption that he’d set up the position incorrectly, and in his subsequent confusion blundered a piece. He resigned on the spot.

Gordon Lindberg versus Charlie Andrews was player earlier (See report Round 7).