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Back to 2010 King's Cup Live Coverage

2010 King's Cup Commentary: Round 10

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Go to: Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Round 7, Round 8, Round 9, Round 10, Round 11, Round 12, Round 13, Round 14, Round 15, Round 16, Round 17, Round 18, Round 19, Round 20, Round 21, Round 22, Round 23, Round 24, Round 25, Round 26, Round 27, Final Round 1, Final Round 2.

We are using regular (not my modified "Chew") Swiss pairings for the first 24 rounds of this event, followed by three rounds of KOTH. That means for the first 24 rounds, it will be easier for a player to trade off early losses in exchange for substantially weaker subsequent opponents, there will therefore be much more variation in so-called "sum of scores" (sum of opponent earned wins) among the players in each win group, and increasing the likelihood of another "Matt Graham" (someone gaming the system and reaching the finals on the strength of weak opposition). For the last three rounds however, the KOTH will make it much harder for any but the very top players to contend for the finals, so maybe it balances out.

Nigel Richards (NZL) is apparently trying to follow the early Swiss loss strategy, and is sitting comfortably in the middle of the field in 27th place, 5-5 +448, waiting to make his move.

Charnwit Sukhumrattanaporn (THA) dithered about position of a play, but eventually guessed wrong, setting Bob Jackman (AUS) up for triple-triple DUELLING.

Pakorn Nemitrmansuk (THA) for his part is trying to make my job easier by playing as slowly as he can at Board 1, giving me plenty of time to do each round's web coverage. Eventually the result comes in, and he's beaten Komol Panyasophonlert (THA) 455-401 to retain his one-game lead. At 8-2 now are only Panupol Sujjayakorn (THA), Thacha Koowirat (THA) and Siu Hean Cheah (SGP).

Although the Thais have the top three places, collectively they are doing relatively poorly, winning 46% of their games against other countries. The Malaysians are winning 64%, and the Singaporeans 63%.