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EOSC 2011 Commentary: Round 15

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Go to: Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Round 7, Round 8, Round 9, Round 10, Round 11, Round 12, Round 13, Round 14, Round 15, Round 16, Round 17, Round 18, Round 19, Round 20, Round 21, Round 22, Round 23, Round 24, Round 25, Round 26, Round 27, Round 28, Round 29, Round 30, Round 31, Round 32, After the Tournament.

Repeat pairings begin this round, as the leader after Round 13 (on which round's standings this round's pairings are based), Mikki Nicholson (Eng), has played the players ranked second through ninth, and it was no longer possible to pair all the top players with each other without repeats. So at Board 1, Theresa Brousson (MLT) plays Mikki again, and at Board 2, it's Jojo Delia (MLT) vs. Raymond Tate (Sco).

In this round's annotated game, first-place Mikki Nicholson (Eng) plays fourth-place Theresa Brousson (MLT). Theresa plays an excellent game and hands Mikki a 458-339 defeat. With the best record of the day (7-2 +923), Theresa ends the day in second place, 11-4 +1379 ahead of Mikki at +969.

We're using WESPA game result slips, which include two printed alphabets that are to be used to designate blanks. I occasionally hear complaints from particular players that this may be insufficient when more than two blank designations are made in a game (I don't think I've seen more than four myself). Joe Caruana (MLT) duly recorded at the bottom of the slip documenting his 331-473 loss to Mohammad Sulaiman (ARE) that not only did he lose by so great a margin while drawing both blanks, but one of them had to go unplayed and therefore undesignated.

Chinedu Okwelogu (NGA) beats Helen Gipson (Sco) 442-413 to finish the second day in first place, 12-3 +1014. He too had a 7-2 day; the other two who did were Albert Zammit (MLT), who after two losses and four forfeits on the first day has made it back up to 7-8 -106 and 26th place; and Pramit Kamath (IND), who started off yesterday with two forfeits and is now in sixth place over all, 10-5 +184 behind Helen. There's something to be said for early strategic losses in Swiss paired events. Rounding out the top six is the remaining 10-5, Raymond Tate (Sco) in fourth place at +575.

That's it for today. Photos will go up in a little while, then it's off to bed and back for a 9:00 A.M. MET start for nine more games on Sunday.