MIXED FORTUNES FOR BRITISH QUARTET.
After an excellent start, British hopes of success in Reykjavik took a few serious blows. The first round saw a dream start where Imre Leader, Graham Brightwell and Jeremy Dyer all won their opening games against Roman Kraczyk (46-16), Karsten Feldborg (42-22) and Pia Stoevring (51-13) respectively. Round two saw Brightwell being the only victor, this against Joel Fransson Johnsson (47-17) but in the third round Brightwell was going oh so well against Hideshi Tamenori and looked like gaining some revenge for WOC finals defeats in 1988 and 1989. Then at move 38 he blew it by playing h2 and went on to lose 23-41. Dyer lost his other two games 31-33 to Palle Badsted and Miroslav Voracek respectively. Round three also saw Leader beat Stoevring 53-11. Yvette Campbell has yet to score a win having lost all games to Lucas de Camargo (21-43), Veronica Stenberg (19-45) and "Eddie" Williams (10-54). Round four saw the top three Leader beat Hoehne (43-21), Brightwell beat Anja Van Gimst (54-10) and Dyer beat Williams 36-28. Round five's only winner was Leader who beat Frenchman Sebastien Barre 44-20. Brightwell lost to an off-form Ben Seeley (14-50) and Dyer went down to Mami Yamanaka (22-42). Round six was the one in which Campbell finally break her duck, this a 37-27 win against Olessia Birgirsson. Also Brightwell beat Hoehne 33-31 and Dyer beat Ivo Rybarik 49-15. The final round of the day saw Leader beat Brightwell 37-27 and Dyer beat Magdalena Rogosz 50-14. The day, however, really belonged for Tamenori who now is favourite to regain the world title and therefore add another trophy to a cabinet that is bursting.

SELECTED STANDINGS (after 7 rounds):

Pos: Sc:  Mbq: Player: 
1    7.0  467 Hideshi Tamenori (JPN) 
2    6.0  438 Martin Eng (SWE)
3    6.0  437 Takuji Kashiwabara (FRA)  
4    5.5  466 Emmanuel Lazard (FRA)
5    5.0  468 Tamaki Miyaoka (JPN) 
6    5.0  452 IMRE LEADER (GBR) 
7    5.0  448 Kwangwook Lee (KOR) 
8    5.0  443 Randy Fang (USA)
9    5.0  429 Sebastien Barre (FRA) 
10   5.0  409 Matthias Berg (GER) 
17   4.0  447 Ben Seeley (USA)
21   4.0  420 Hisako Hoshi (JPN) 
23   4.0  414 GRAHAM BRIGHTWELL (GBR)  
24   4.0  408 JEREMY DYER (GBR)
49   2.0  345 Geoff Hubbard (AUS) 
53   2.0  312 Elisabetta Vecchi (ITA) 
60   1.0  256 YVETTE CAMPBELL