This is the official last round of the tournament, but several games are yet to be played, and the hunt for the title remains open.

The most important game, Scott Stewart versus Mitchel Bailey, was postponed for several nights, but when played was, predictably, a Caro-Kann Defence (Smyslov Variation). Mitchel, an expert on this defence managed to get Scott into a main theoretical line, which Scott perhaps suffering from stage fright misplayed. He decided to opt for the Cook solution and offered Mitchel a draw after 16 moves! Mitchel accepted and Scott claims he was lucky to get away with a draw!

Scott now must beat Charlie Andrews to force a playoff with Gordon Lindberg.

Four games were actually played at the club, with the most interesting being Kevin Perrin versus John Frangakis. A Catalan Opening, it featured another stab at glory by John Frangakis when once again he sacrificed his queen, this time for 3 pieces. He made it 4 pieces for the queen shortly after in this dramatic and fascinating game. Sadly, John was unable to properly coordinate his forces and was overwhelmed by the army of white pawns, loss number 12 for John.

Clint Stewart versus Jing Jia was another full-blooded encounter. A Bird’s Opening (1. f4) resulted in a middle game with a material imbalance, Jing having sacrificed a piece for 3 pawns. His king was under a great deal of pressure however, and Clint seemed to have all the winning prospects but he was unable to press home his initiative and was outplayed by the cool youngster.

Jamie Brotheridge surprisingly adopted the Larsen against Charlie Andrews who, unsurprisingly responded with a King’s Indian set-up. Nothing dramatic occurred until Jamie launched into some middle game madness and resigned on the verge of a losing endgame. John Lavery surprised Robert Bailey by playing the Winckelman-Riemer Gambit against Rob’s French Defence (1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. a3 Bxc3 5. bxc3 dxe4 6. f3?!). Black found an interesting way of dealing with it, but was later outplayed by the experienced veteran.

Judd Madden versus Peter Lumsdon was postponed. Gordon Lindberg versus Patrick Cook was played earlier (see round 5).