Alon Greenfeld had a real battle with Manuel Weeks and won in some style after what looked like crazy complications. While in the other big game which started out as a very sterile endgame heading towards a draw, all manner of complications came about, seemingly from nowhere. In the rough and tumble of the game Stephen Jessel was presented with a great chance to cause an upset when he could have played a very unusual tactic on move 43 which seemed to be quite dangerous (43...Ne1!). According to the Mark Orr/ICU website Alexander Baburin says he had a defence that should hold for him [44 Nd2]. Either way, he hardly deserved to lose and a draw was perhaps the most likely and appropiate result giving the previous play.

Meanwhile in my own game I got an equal position easily enough and then a clear advantage in the endgame. It had seemed to both my opponent Mark Hebden and myself that I may have missed something, but after looking at it afterwards it seems I never had anything much better that would have won, so I was very pleased to make an easy draw and stay on target for an IM norm. While Mark Orr almost held Algimantas Butnorius to a draw only to fall foul of some tactics.

The games from this round are now thankfully available. for download as pgn files

Also See games section for an idea of how this round developed.