It is one of the biggest chess tournaments in Australia. It attracts beginners to grandmasters from all parts of Australia and from several other countries around the world.
The tournament has two categories (1) Open, in which anyone with any rating can play, and (2) Challengers, in which only those with ACF ratings lower then 1900 can play.
It is a 9-round Swiss open with a time control of 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game plus 30 seconds per move from move 1.
A lot of players that participated in the Doeberl Cup are taking part, including champion Li Chao. Joining him in the battle for the 4,000 USD first prize are GM Loek van Wely, last year winner GM Vajda Levente, Doeberl Cup runner-up GM Jiri Stocek, and 8 other GMs.
Official website
Participants (top seeds):
| 1 | GM | Li Chao B | CHN | 2686 |
| 2 | GM | Van Wely Loek | NED | 2684 |
| 3 | GM | Vajda Levente | ROU | 2632 |
| 4 | GM | Heberla Bartlomiej | POL | 2562 |
| 5 | GM | Stocek Jiri | CZE | 2544 |
| 6 | GM | Sethuraman S.P. | IND | 2541 |
| 7 | GM | Zhao Zong-Yuan | AUS | 2537 |
| 8 | GM | Horvath Adam | HUN | 2509 |
| 9 | GM | Czebe Attila | HUN | 2479 |
| 10 | GM | Varga Zoltan | HUN | 2472 |
| 11 | IM | Palit Somak | IND | 2449 |
| 12 | IM | Stany G.A. | IND | 2432 |
| 13 | GM | Johansen Darryl K. | AUS | 2430 |
| 14 | GM | Laxman R.R. | IND | 2429 |
| 15 | FM | Cheng Bobby | AUS | 2425 |