Gawain Jones

Author: Gawain

  • Ennis Open: A success

    Sue has already recounted the games step by step but I’ll do a quick roundup of the whole event. We arrived on Thursday lunchtime and were picked up from the airport by Gerry Casey who was also our host for the weekend. We spent the afternoon walking round Ennis, me occasionally remembering the directions and…

  • Candidates Matches Topalov and Mamedyarov out!

    Hello again to you all. First of all just letting you know that the poll that Sue wrote about in the below post was pulled as the voting went haywire – there were no controls on who was allowed to vote; only one vote per i.p. address and so it was unlikely to reflect public…

  • London League versus Kings Head

    In the lovely weather, Gawain decided to walk over for his London League game on the 27th of April against Kings Head. He was a bit sore all over due to us visiting our friends FM Manuel Weeks and his lovely girlfriend Brigitta Holland as well as GM Stuart Conquest the day before where we…

  • Norwegian Open – The Finale

    Round 8 I played White against the solid and well prepared Michael Richter. I’d looked him up and seen he had recently gained a lot of rating points and was now closing in on the GM title so I knew the game would be tough. I decided to surprise his French with 3.Nc3 (rather than…

  • Norwegian Open – Round Seven Black vs Leif

    Not much to say about today’s game really. Black against Leif Johannessen a Norwegian GM, he surprised me in the opening playing the Four Pawns Attack against my Kings Indian playing in a positional style with capturing on c5. Actually I played a move order that I thought prevented this but couldn’t remember my analysis…

  • Norwegian Open Rounds 5+6

    Apologies for no update yesterday, I found myself snowed under with work (checking the English for the ChessVibes Openings (check www.chessvibes.com) and then I had a deadline for ChessBase to annotate a couple of games from the European Championships. I eventually finished the work at 2.30am! Round Five I was paired with the scarily improving…

  • Norwegian Open – Rounds Three and Four

    Today was a double round day so up and early for a 9am start. I was paired against another Norwegian 2100, Victor Hansen. After a rather offbeat opening (1.Nf3 d6 2.c4 e5 3.d3 f5) I equalised comfortably and could have taken the advantage before things again started going wrong. I set up this tactic (cheapo)…

  • Norwegian Open – The Arrival Round 1&2

    We ended up home around 2.30am from the simul at the RAC club. Luckily Sue had thought ahead (as always) and packed for me so I could curl up and get a quick couple hours sleep before getting up at 4.30 to start my trek over to Norway. Actually the trip was quite painless (except for…

  • Final Round of the Reykjavik Open and trip home

    I got home last night but was too tired to do anything and spent today relaxing but uploading my last round now. As Sue quickly wrote, my final round game was a draw but it was pretty interesting. I decided to repeat the Dutch which I played in round 7 (via 1…e6 to cut out…

  • Round 9(final round)! 1/2 with Boris Chatalbashev 2602

    Gawain finished 7th= (9th in tiebreak). Check out the last round games here.

  • Rounds 7 and 8 Reykjavik Open

    A very quick post as I’m playing my round 9 game in an hour and a half. Apologies for the slight delay in writing this update – my chesspublishing column is due on the 15th of every month and I had to get that out of the way first. In round seven I played the…

  • Rounds 4, 5 and 6, Reykjavik Open

    Sorry for the slight delay in posting. Saturday was a double round day followed by a chess quiz and was very hectic. I then needed most of Sunday to recover! Round Four I was paired against Bragi Thorfinnsson, an Icelandic IM who I met a few years ago at the European Individual Championships together with his…

  • Round Three MP Reykjavik Open

    Today I played the first game I was happy with of the tournament. Perhaps I missed the most accurate moves in a couple of positions but overall I saw a lot and the moves seemed to flow quite well. My opponent played the Fianchetto Variation against my Kings Indian. I’ve got quite a good score…

  • Round Two and Tour of Iceland

    After getting up and grabbing a big breakfast at the hotel I got onto the coach for a trip around Iceland. After a drive through some beautiful scenery while our guide kept us amused with some interesting facts (apparently the current mayor of Reykjavik used to be a stand up comedian who said he wanted…

  • Round 1 MP Reykjavik Open

    At the hotel there’s free access to google but not much else. Luckily I have gmail and so am able to check my email and send these updates to Sue who can upload them. The pairings only appeared online at 3.30 today, and with the opening ceremony at 4 and the venue 20minutes away there…

  • Arriving in Iceland

    We stayed in Northern Ireland at my parents’ place until Saturday when we came back to London; a rather gruelling 15 hour trip consisting of walk, bus, taxi, ferry, train, train, train, tube and walk! Spent a couple days writing my next ChessPublishing update and then Tuesday was time for the next tournament. I met…