Olympiad Round 10 - Singapore pulverised 3-1 by Australia - by Junior Tay

We were simply plucked by the 'sick' Australians and I mean it literally. Apart from GM Zhang Zhong who made GM David Smerdon pay dearly for his frisky Bishop excursion (Be2-h5-g4-h3-g4-e2), all our International Masters could not stop their opponents from outplaying them in the endgame.

Difficult to imagine that a GM is handling the White pieces here. Wei Ming assured us "Dave plays the French pretty well" and this is a one-off thing.

Ravindran wheels out his Open Spanish yet again despite its poor record of late. Deja vu...

After enterprising play in the opening and early middlegame, Li Ruofan's decision to remove her Knight from the juicy d6 square gave IM Moulthun Ly the chance to set up an impregnable defence. One hasty Queenside pawn lunge with b4 gave the Aussie the chance to counterattack and eventually win the pawn. Another missed chance in Queen + Knight ending ended her resistance.

Finally, FM Max Illingworth rebuffed Daniel F's pawn sacrifice and with precise endgame play, clinched his IM title with this win.