Australian Open set for blockbuster finish

The 2011 Australian Open Chess Championships are set to go right down to the wire in the final round tomorrow, with five players poised with one hand on the cup.  Top seed Zhong-Yuan ‘Zongie’ Zhao and Mouthun ‘Bullet’ Ly have a tighter grip than the others, and will face off on board one knowing that victory would mean an outright title.  Both have been in scintillating form during the run home, and it’s hard to pick a favourite.  Nipping at their heels a half point off the pace are George ‘Wendi’ Xie, Junta ‘Beckham’ Ikeda and Vladimir ‘My son’s not better than me yet!’ Smirnov.  The latter has had an amazing tournament and indeed an amazing 24 months of chess, having really kicked on himself while grooming his son, Anton, into perhaps Australia’s greatest ever chess prodigy.  He was disappointingly blown away in today’s penultimate match against Zhao, relinquishing the outright lead, but has led from the front and secured his third and final International Master norm in round 9.

Hollywood couldn’t have scripted this better.  What a nail biter!  It’s hard to make predictions at this point, especially as the immense psychological pressure these guys must be feeling has every chance of turning any guesses into self-fulfilling prophecies.  Rather than do that, let’s imagine how the Hollywood writers would pen the final scenes:

– George and Junta find themselves in a tactical melee that ultimately disintegrates in George’s favour, but costs George a lot of time on the clock.  George simplifies into a winning endgame and eventually finds himself trying to mate with king, bishop and knight versus king.  He gets mesmerised in the final stages and sees his clock flag, adding to Junta’s incredible record of winning on time (he’s flagged three of Australia’s four grand masters, including yours truly).  With inadequate material for Junta to mate, the game’s declared a draw.

– Mouthun and Yuan settle down for a real slug fest of highly complex theoretical proportions in the opening.  Up-to-date novelties and positional mastery eventually give way to dazzling combinatorial fireworks that result in huge sacrifices on one side for a bridge-burning kingside attack.  The defence is accurate and utterly impregnable, and so a mandatory perpetual check for the draw ensues.

– Vlad the Impaler finds himself on the back foot against Greg ‘Shirty’ Canfell, who has also had an outstanding tournament and led for many of the later rounds.  Vlad defends with rigour and bounces back to show the form that brought him the IM title.  His sparkling final round victory sets up a thrilling three-way blitz tiebreak with Yuan and Moulthun.

– …and write your own dramatic climax to the playoffs.

Fascinating stuff.  Tune in to watch the games live here at 11am AEST for the final instalment.  More exciting (and certainly closer) than the Ashes.