The round 3 games were every bit as exciting as those in the previous round, with some narrow escapes, some clearly winning attacks which fizzled out and some interesting endgames, including that between Greg and Umar, which had a study-like quality about it given the opposite-color bishops. Again, I’ll try to get some of these games online during the Thanksgiving break next week, perhaps sooner.
Below are the pairings, wall chart and prize group standings for round 4. Anton is half a point clear in his group but fell ill this week and won’t be able to play Thursday, regrettably, though he still has an excellent chance at a prize with a draw or win in the final round. Hugo is also half a point clear in his group and we’ll see if he can keep that going when he plays Nikita this week. Note that a number of players have needed to take a zero-point bye given they’d already used the one half-point bye allowed in this event. That’s always unfortunate but there are a number of reasons why we use this rule–follow up with me Thursday if you have any questions.
Due to the odd number of players this round Umar gets the full-point bye though, as always, things could change in 24 hours if we get another bye request or the like–I’ll redo the pairings if I receive any such requests before 4pm Thursday. I look forward to seeing many of you tomorrow! Regards,
Mark Drury
