With 1st round nerves out of the way, the players settled down for the long struggle ahead. The Major pairing had John Lavery play the Grand Prix attack against Peter Lumsdon's Sicilian Defence. In a wild and woolly game, Peter was already two pawns in arrears, with an exposed king, when he left a Rook en prise and promptly resigned.

Jamie Brotheridge met second seed Patrick Cook and found an unusual continuation against Patricks Chigorin Defence (1.d4 d5 2. c4 Nc6). Black struggled to gain some activity and dropped a queen-side pawn, but gain some play. At this point, Patrick offered a draw and was surprised when Jamie accepted after some thought.

Judd Madden faced the confident top seed Jing Jia and caused the upset of the round, and maybe the tournament. With a fine display of calm, positional chess. Having won a pawn early, Judd continued his logical game, winning a 2nd pawn in the endgame and finished off the game effectively.

In the miracle of the round, Clint Stewart Played resourcefully against his brother, Scott's Sicilian Defence and gained What looked to be a totally winning position, the exchange and three pawns to the good!! However, Clint was unable to deliver the coup de grace, and combined with Scott's never say die attitude, found himself under extreme time pressure with to many problems to solve, and collapsed. A terrible blow for Clint who could easily have 2/2.

Keven Perrin Faced Charlie Andrews who ventured his usual Kings Indian defence. Perrin Nursed a slight edge throughout a lengthy game, but was never able to find more, and players agreed a draw. Mitchel Bailey, versus Gordon Lindberg was anther Kings Indian That also seemed headed for a draw, until Mitchel went astray in the endgame to hand Gordon the full point.

Robert Bailey versus John Frangakis followed a similar course from a Queens Gambit Accepted, enabling Robert to share the lead with John Lavery on 2/2.