Saturday, November 19, 2005

George Earns IM Norm

Australia is soon to gain its next International Master in George Xie of Sydney. The youngster scored two straight wins in rounds 8 and 9 against stronger opposition. In round 8 he downed International Master Luka Lenic of Slovakia on the black side of a Queens Indian.

Then in round 9, he faced another 2400+ player in Armenian, Levon Babujian who is still an untitled player. Again, our mate proved himself more than capable and won! Thus he is now on 5.5 points and thereby earning his final IM norm requirement. All that George needs to do now is reach the 2400 rating mark and he becomes a full IM!

World Junior Championship (Boys) U20
Lenic, Luka
Xie, George Wendi
E13

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6 3. c4 b6 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. Bg5 Bb7 6. e3 h6 7. Bh4 g5 8. Bg3 Ne4 9. Nd2 Nxc3 10. bxc3 Bxc3 11. Rc1 Bb4 12. h4 Rg8 13. hxg5 hxg5 14. Rh7 Be4 15. Rh6 Nc6 16. f3 Bg6 17. d5 Na5 18. e4 Qe7 19. Be2 g4 20. Bf4 e5 21. Be3 Bc5 22. Nf1 O-O-O 23. Qd3 gxf3 24. gxf3 Nb7 25. Kd2 Rh8 26. Bxc5 Nxc5 27. Qe3 Rxh6 28. Qxh6 Na4 29. Kd1 Qb4 30. Qd2 a5 31. Qxb4 axb4 32. Kd2 Kb7 33. a3 Nc5 34. Kc2 bxa3 35. Ra1 f5 36. exf5 Bxf5+ 37. Kc3 Ra8 38. Bd1 a2 39. Kb2 Bb1 40. Nd2 Nd3+ 41. Kb3 Rf8 42. Kc3 Ne1 43. c5 Rf5 44. Nxb1 axb1=Q 45. Rxb1 Nxf3 0-1

Grandmaster Shakhriyar Mamedyarov leads the boys tournament on a staggering 8.5/9 points with a massive rating performance of 2959. His only draw came in the 5th round against GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek of Poland.

Official site.

2 comments:

Milan Lee said...

Congratulations to young Xie. Hopefully he can become GM soon. So far Rogers is only Australian GM?

Btw. Luka Lenic is from Slovenia. He is very tough, beat me so many times on worldchessnetwork

The Closet Grandmaster said...

Daryl Johansen is also a GM.