
DIS 2016 Australian Women's Masters
Report from Melbourne by Jamie Kenmure
Fresh off the back of organising a highly successful Australian Championships, the Sesquicentennial (150 year) celebrations continue with the 2016 Australian Women's Masters! All interested players were invited to apply for participation, and the top ten applicants rated over 2000 FIDE were given a place in the field. The format is a ten player WIM-norm round robin, lasting from Thursday January 14th to Friday January 22, 2016. Time control: 90 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes to finish, with 30 seconds per move starting from move one. Prizes: first A$900, second A$600 and third A$300. The venue is the Melbourne Chess Club, 66 Leicester Street, Fitzroy, Melbourne. Games start at 2 p.m. daily.

Round 1 got underway on a cool Thursday Melbourne afternoon, with the players thankful that the temperature was in the moderate mid 20s rather than the scorching mid 40s of the previous day! On the board, the play was generally very combative, with most games producing hard-fought contests.

In the clash between Poland's Maria Gosciniak (right) and Kristyna Novosadova from the Czech Republic Novosadova had an extra pawn, but Gosciniak blockaded it and a draw was agreed on move 50.

Hanna Leks and Ticia Gara played a fighting game, with Gara winning with a nice tactic

Round two (above) saw four of five games being decisive, with players pushing for every point and half point they can get. The most dramatic of those was the game between Maria Gosciniak and Xiaobing Gu, which saw Gosciniak losing on time when she held a slight edge!

Round three of the Australian Women's Masters saw the leaders move further away from the other players, with three players now clear of the rest of the field. Gu Xiaobing (above right) is outright leader with 3.0/3, with Deimante Daulyte (left) in outright second with 2.5/3. Ticia Gara in outright third on 2.0/3. Although this makes for an exciting contest for the top places, particularly with many of the leading players yet to play each other, it places more pressure on players who were hoping to achieve a norm in the tournament, as the score required moves closer to the number of games remaining in the tournament.
All pairings, results and cross table
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As a special service here are all the games from the first three rounds, with short introductions to each. You can select the games from the dropdown menu above the board.

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1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.d4 exd4 5.Nxd4 Bb4 6.Nxc6 bxc6 7.Bd3 d5 8.exd5 0-0 9.0-0 cxd5 10.Bg5 c6 11.h3 Bd6 12.Qf3 Rb8 13.Na4 h6 14.Bxf6 Qxf6 15.Qxf6 gxf6 16.c4 Rb4 17.b3 Ba6 18.Rac1 dxc4 19.Bxc4 Bxc4 20.Rxc4 Rxc4 21.bxc4 Rb8 22.Rd1 Be5 23.Nc5 Rb4 24.Nd3 Rxc4 25.Rc1 Rxc1+ 26.Nxc1 Kf8 27.Kf1 Ke7 28.Ke2 Kd6 29.Nb3 Kd5 30.Kd3 f5 31.Na5 Bc7 32.Nc4 Bb6 33.f3 f4 34.Nd2 Ba5 35.Nc4 Bb4 36.Nb2 f5 37.Nc4 Bd6 38.Na5 Be5 39.Nc4 Bf6 40.Na5 Bd8 41.Nb3 c5 42.Nd2 Bc7 43.Nc4 Kc6 44.Na3 Kd5 45.Nc4 Bd8 46.Na3 Bh4 47.Nc4 Be1 48.Na3 a6 49.Nc4 a5 50.a4 Bb4 ½–½
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Gosciniak,M | 2090 | Novosadova,K | 2231 | ½–½ | 2016 | C47 | 2016 Australian Womens Masters | 1.1 |
Gu,X | 2286 | Ryjanova,J | 2387 | 1–0 | 2016 | B14 | 2016 Australian Womens Masters | 1.2 |
Berezina,I | 2178 | Stangl,A | 2052 | 1–0 | 2016 | A84 | 2016 Australian Womens Masters | 1.3 |
Zhang,J | 2250 | Daulyte,D | 2378 | ½–½ | 2016 | B31 | 2016 Australian Womens Masters | 1.4 |
Gara,T | 2347 | Leks,H | 2192 | 1–0 | 2016 | B60 | 2016 Australian Womens Masters | 1.5 |
Novosadova,K | 2231 | Leks,H | 2192 | 0–1 | 2016 | B59 | 2016 Australian Womens Masters | 2.1 |
Daulyte,D | 2378 | Gara,T | 2347 | 1–0 | 2016 | B23 | 2016 Australian Womens Masters | 2.2 |
Stangl,A | 2052 | Zhang,J | 2250 | ½–½ | 2016 | B86 | 2016 Australian Womens Masters | 2.3 |
Ryjanova,J | 2387 | Berezina,I | 2178 | 1–0 | 2016 | E81 | 2016 Australian Womens Masters | 2.4 |
Gosciniak,M | 2090 | Gu,X | 2286 | 0–1 | 2016 | B97 | 2016 Australian Womens Masters | 2.5 |
Gu,X | 2286 | Novosadova,K | 2231 | 1–0 | 2016 | C28 | 2016 Australian Womens Masters | 3.1 |
Berezina,I | 2178 | Gosciniak,M | 2090 | ½–½ | 2016 | D11 | 2016 Australian Womens Masters | 3.2 |
Zhang,J | 2250 | Ryjanova,J | 2387 | ½–½ | 2016 | B27 | 2016 Australian Womens Masters | 3.3 |
Gara,T | 2347 | Stangl,A | 2052 | 1–0 | 2016 | C06 | 2016 Australian Womens Masters | 3.4 |
Leks,H | 2192 | Daulyte,D | 2378 | 0–1 | 2016 | B20 | 2016 Australian Womens Masters | 3.5 |
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During the event the players can check out some other things Melbourne has to offer,
including the Melbourne Zoo ...

... and the Australian Open tennis

The tournament is being held with the support the Melbourne Chess Club,
which provides the venue, the FIDE DIS commission and Chess Victoria.