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EOSC 2011 Commentary: Round 24

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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.

At the end of the penultimate day, the top four seeds hold the top four places, and two of them have a three-game lead over the rest of the field. Theresa Brousson (MLT), on the strength of an 8-1 +739 day (her only loss was that three-point game to Raymond Tate (Sco) in Round 17), has moved from second to first place. Her average score is now 470.92. To put that in some perspective, the reigning World Champion, Pakorn Nemitrmansuk, averaged 458 points at the 2009 WSC.

Theresa played David Delicata (MLT) again in the Board 1 annotated game. She won 494-465: David's score is the fifth highest loss of the event and well over his own 419.00 average.

Not to be outdone, Chinedu Okwelogu (NGA) crushes Vincent Boyle (Sco), 542-221, for the third-highest spread in the tournament. Vincent's score is the fourth-lowest, not including Albert Zammit's (MLT) forfeit. (At the other extreme, Sheena Wilson (Sco) beats Reno Zammit (MLT) 337-335, the fifth-lowest win so far.)

Mikki Nicholson (Eng) loses 386-404 to Cecil Muscat (MLT), giving Theresa and Chinedu a three-game lead with eight games to go. It's still anyone's tournament, but anyone other than the two leaders is going to have to hope for a 7-1 or 8-0 day. David's loss to Theresa means that he's no longer alone on 15 wins; Helen Gipson (Sco) beats Jojo Delia (MLT) 423-386 to overtake him.

Although it's not mathematically impossible for one of the five players on 14-10 to win tomorrow, it's very unlikely. First, both Theresa and Chinedu would each have to do no better than 4-4, and they're too experienced for such a collapse to be likely, and even then all of Mikki, Helen and David would have to have subpar days. Stay tuned to see what happens next!