2021 Australian National Championship

  • Round 1 was played Monday 18 October to Sunday 24 October.
  • Round 2 was played Monday 25 October to Sunday 31 October.
  • Round 3 was played Monday 1 November to Sunday 7 November.
  • Round 4 was played Monday 8 November to Sunday 14 November.
  • Round 5 was played Monday 15 November to Sunday 21 November.
  • Round 6 was played Monday 22 November to Monday 29 November.
  • Round 7 was played Tuesday 30 November to Tuesday 7 December.

Despite being the Australian National Championship, in the spirit of international co-operation and bond-building, it was open to all players of the Asia-Pacific region. It included players from Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, across 18 clubs and 8 non-club players.

While the Open division was itself self-contained, the Handicap divisions were technically one division, albeit with a McMahon bar in between to seperate the two. This barrier proved to be semi-porous, leading some players in the 3rd divsion to play at least one game against a 2nd division opponent, albeit with appropriate handicap. Well, theoretically – the tournament software has both a delight in extreme match-ups and an allergy to handicaps larger than 9 stones.

Despite some inevitable hiccups endemic to any online tournament, by all accounts people had fun.

The final results were, as follows:

Open DivisionFirst Handicap DivisionSecond Handicap Division
1st PlaceDaniel Li (6d)Peter Simpson (1k)Victor Phan (9k)
2nd PlaceLaris Du Qing (6d)Patrick Liang (1k)Sorn Nawapanich (12k)
3rd PlaceSteven Cheng (5d)Brendan Henessy (2k)Christopher Riding (8k)