Excuse me if I gush a bit, but in round 7 I had my best result since arriving in Australia over 5 years ago. I didn't hold out much hope against Vladimir Smirnov, especially as my preparation for the game was a full days work, but perhaps this helped me to relax into the game. In contrast, Vladimir was under pressure to score a result against me with the black pieces to keep his IM norm hopes alive. He went all out for a king's side attack in the Dutch but it fell short and I won on the other side of the board.
We were again in the back room of Box Hill Chess Club as Friday is their main club night and there were events happening in the main room....an allegro I think. So the DGT boards were not in operation, though the games were transmitted by the organiser, Leonid Sandler to the chesschat forum. The round was tense as the 4 FM's still in the hunt for a norm were all put under extra pressure in their games. The Pairings and results were:
Levi-Solomon 0-1
Gorka-Smirnov 1-0
Rujevic-Morris 1-0
Teichmann-Illingworth 1-0
Steadman-Cheng 0-1
Eddy Levi again saw a decent position deteriorate to a loss to the tournament leader. James Morris seemed to come out of the opening very well against Rujevic, but made a horrible blunder that cost him a piece and was visibly upset after the game. Max Illingworth sacrificed a pawn for piece activity which was eventually nullified by Erik Teichmann who took the full point and thus retains the chance of getting to the norm. And Bobby Cheng kept his IM norm chances alive with a nice win against Steadman.
Standings:
6. Solomon
5. Teichmann, Cheng
4. Smirnov, Illingworth
3. Gorka, Rujevic, Morris
2. Steadman
0. Levi
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