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The Year 2006 in Review

National Championships of note.

Since the majority of the visitors to the About site are native English speakers, we present the results of the 2006 championships of the main English speaking countries. In January, the Australian Championship finished in Brisbane. Ian Rogers won with 9.0/11, a point ahead of David Smerdon and Murray Chandler. A few weeks later, Chandler won the New Zealand Championship at Queenstown with 8.5/10, a half-point ahead of Rogers and Smerdon. In March Alexander Onischuk won the U.S. Championship in San Diego. The winners of two groups, each with 32 players, met in a final match for the title. Onischuk beat Yury Shulman for the overall title, and Anna Zatonskih beat Rusadan Goletiani for the women's championship title. In April, Darwin Laylo won the Philippine Championship in Mandaluyong City. The same month saw the first of two Indian Championships played during the year. Surya Shekhar Ganguly won the 43rd National 'A' Championship in Visakhapatnamon with 14.0/20 on tie-break over Sandipan Chanda and DP Singh. Swathi Ghate won the women's title with 14.0/18 a point ahead of Mary Ann Gomes. In December, Ganguly won the 44th National 'A' Championship in Atul with 9.0/13, a half-point ahead of Chakkravarthy J Deepan and Prasad S Arun. In July, Jonathan Grant won the Scottish Championship in Troon with 6.5/8, a full 1.5 points ahead of Andrew Muir and Alan Grant. Also in July, Stephen Brady won the Irish Championship with 8.0/9, a half point ahead of Stephen Jessel. In August, Jonathan Rowson won the Smith & Williamson British Championship in Swansea, Wales, with 8.5/11. Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant finished second, 0.5 points behind. The 93rd Championship was Rowson's third consecutive title. The same month, Igor Zugic won the Belzberg Invitational Canadian Closed Championship, a zonal, in Toronto, Ontario. He finished with 7.0/9, a half-point ahead of four players including GMs Mark Bluvshtein and Pascal Charbonneau. In November, former World Champion Challenger Nigel Short (England) won the Commonwealth Championship in Mumbai. His score of 9.0/10 placed him a full point ahead of Chanda Sandipan and M R Venkatesh (both India). *** Of the events we normally cover in this year end review, only the South African Championship appears not to have been held in 2006. Next : Opens 2006

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