GACC Round 2 on the way

At the end of Round 1, most of the top seeded players breezed through their first round opponents rather easily. Indonesian GM Megaranto Susanto who was paired with Nurul Najmi Bakar of UIA was one of the few early finishers for round 1, cementing his position as the top contender for this year's title.

15th seed Amir Hamzah KZ of UIA almost became the highest casualty for the day but managed to squeeze for a draw against APU's Wong Yong Ken who is seeded 49th. The highest seeded casualty for the day belongs to WIM SD Ranasinghe of Sri Lanka when she lost to Singaporean Philip Goh on table 21.

Another minor upset happened on the next table 22 when 22nd seeded Vanessa D'Souza of India drew with unrated Ali A Rahman Hameedaldeen of APU.

At press time, there are still 16 more boards playing with the top 3 boards still slugging it out to out smart their opponents. On table 1, GM Megaranto Susanto is playing white against WFM Melissa Lo of Singapore and on table 2, Susanto's compatriot IM Firman Syah is up against Lim Kim Siong of University Malaya and on the third table, HELP Lew Ken Yew faces India's Antonio Viani D'Cunha with the former handling the white pieces.

Round 2 started at 4:00pm earlier today, a slight deviation from the usual schedule to accommodate for the Opening Ceremony and Round 3 is expected to start at 9:00am tomorrow.

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Olivia Madhavan - Sole representative from ATC, Malaysia

Playing on home ground - UM Lum Zhun Hoong

University Malaya WFM Alia Anin Azwa Bakri - Relax playing on her own turf

At press time, the top 3 boards are still going at it.