Smurf Wins, Armen to Sydney!

IM David Smerdon has won the 2008 Ryde Eastwood Open with a Score of 6.5/7 only drawing with Ayvazyan in the 6th Round.  Astonishingly Smerdon only played 2 of the 6 other over 2000 players as upsets were reiking havoc all accross the tournament. 

The Ryde Eastwood Open incorporated the City of Sydney Championships this year and the title goes to Armen Ayvazyan who finished second, a full point behind Smerdon. He finished unbeated with two draws with Blair Mandla and Brendan Norman

Notable Strong performers included Queenslands Sebastian Jule Who with a rating of 1674 defeated Ronald Scott (2212) and Nepalese visitor Krishna Thapa (2143) (who disappointingly did not show after two losses on the sunday).  His only losses were to IM David Smerdon and Armen Ayvazyan.

Sebastian Jule came equal third with 5/7 with 6 other players: Blair Mandla (1984) (who had draws with Ayvazyan (2164) and Max illingworth (2170); Arthur Huynh (1835) (Go the Parramatta Chess Club players!) who was lucky to get a forfeit when Thapa failed to show, and defeated Paul Broekhuyse (2072) and drew with Max illingworth; Max Illingworth (who was playing this tournament as a break from his year 10 studies) , Andrew Brown (1951) who scored a win against Max and , Ronald Scott and Paul Broekhuyse.

The Youngsters almost Swept the divisional prizes with Sebastian Jule winning the U1800 prize (which was larger than the 3rd cut up in pieces) second was Emma Guo, and Joshua Lau. In the under 1400 Jerry Xu, Johnathan Ren and Kinto Wan won prizes

And in the U1600 division there was a 4 way tie for first: Oscar Wang, Sean Gu, Adrian Kong and the lone adult outside of the Open prizes: Anthony Villanueva 

A good time for all participants with lots and lots AND LOTS of upsets.