So far, one of the surprises of the tournament has been the American Adarsh Jayakumar. Despite allowing a draw against a 1600 in the first round and then getting a 1610 rated player in the 2nd round, he was remarkably on course for an IM norm after 5 rounds!
He followed his sub-par performance in the first two rounds with 2.5 out of 3 vs GM’s Ivan Sokolov, Baris Esen and Throstur Thorhallsson.
Unfortunately he had some kind of misunderstanding with the playing schedule and missed his appointment to play against GM Stelios Halkias today. The good news however is we have a 10 rounds tournament so he can still get his 9 round norm!
We wish him all the best!
