Author: Gawain

  • Land of the Long White Cloud.

    The South African Open has been and gone. We’ve packed all our belongings (including a duvet) and are now back in Auckland. Even though we’ve been checking the site frantically we aren’t sure what Gawain’s placing was.. though the organiser recalled outright 2nd. He faced FM de Villiers in the penultimate Round and was down…

  • SA Open – Round 10

    It’s been 4 day since I last wrote. If you really would like to know Gawain’s score you can go to www.saopen2009.com and find results there. He had a draw with Amon though there was a bit of a commotion. Gawain’s opponent offered him a draw but he didn’t see the offer and made a…

  • The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late ~Charles Caleb Colton

    The South African Open started last weekend.Originally we were meant to play at ours but our flatmate was hosting his 30th Birthday party here so we had to find an alternative venue. Gawain, IM Puchen Wang (NZL) and IM Mirko Rujecvic (Aus) agreed to play in this tournament online organized by ChessCube. These will be…

  • Gold Coast, Australia

    Sorry for the late write up. Last week was hectic being in the Gold Coast for the Oceania Zonal (20th-26th June) and after that the Gold Coast Open plus a couple of days extra playing tourist. We left Melbourne early Saturday morning and arrived to no sun, dark clouds and rain. For me the first…

  • Victoria Open

    This weekend was not quite as successful as we hoped. The Vic Open was held at Box Hill chess club which was quite a commute from where we lived. Over the weekend we played 7 rounds in total. Gawain blundered his queen unfortunately whilst in time trouble in round 4 and drew his last round…

  • Short trip to NZ!

    Hi everyone, Time for another (slightly late) update! Last Friday we got an early flight to Auckland, New Zealand so early that we decided to pull an all nighter. Once in Auckland we went straight to the hotel/venue grabbed some Hells Pizza and L&P which had been sorely missed while away and had an early…

  • Head Injury

    Hello Again, Last week was quite eventful as on the way to the supermarket Gawain managed to run into a height bar restriction thing coming out of a carpark at the bottom of our apartment block. His head ended up bleeding profusely so after walking back to our place to check on the injury we…

  • New Zealand

    Gawain on an island in the Bay of Islands Us enjoying the sun πŸ™‚ Gawain a bit too much… Cape Reinga – The northwesternmost tip of NZ. Te Paki Sand Dunes – people getting ready to sandboard Clean Green NZ…

  • You can’t be late until you show up.

    Hello there, I’m Sue, Gawain’s girlfriend – Gawain isn’t the most let say hard-working guy in the world so instead he has me updating his blog as we’re usually attached to one another (I tag alongside him to various tournaments). Instead of being in NZ as we are supposed to be we’ve decided to reside…

  • A quick non-chess trip

    I am taking a week out to visit Lucca, where we used to live, to hopefully catch-up with some good friends.

  • British Chess Championships, St. George’s Hall, Liverpool

    Sunday 27th July – Saturday 9th August See the official pairings and results here: www.britishchess08.com

  • Doeberl Cup

    A full account is available here: reports.chessdom.com/doeberl-2008/final-report

  • Calvia Chess Festival

    October 2006, Calvia Chess Festival, Mallorca, Spain. Went to this tournament with Thomas Rendle, another young English IM. It was nice to get away from the cold to this warm venue πŸ™‚ I was pleased with my performance (2595) but narrowly missed out on a 9 round gm norm. I need a 10 round gm…

  • European Club Championships

    October 2006, European Club Championships, Fuegen, Austria. An exceptionally strong tournament with many of the best players in the world playing. I was top board for Slough Sharks and managed 5.5/7 achieving my 2nd gm norm and my highest ever rating performance at 2673. Our team also finished above our seeding on 3/7. We rented…

  • Galway Congress

    October 2006, Galway Congress, Ireland. I returned here as joint winner from last year and went into the last round in the lead again but lost an interesting game to Alex Baburin and finished on 4.5/6, half a point behind the leaders. Another enjoyable weekend though.

  • European Union Championships

    September 2006, European Union Championships, Liverpool. 2nd= and my 1st gm norm, only need 2 more πŸ™‚ The official website is http://www.liverpoolchessinternational.co.uk/. My favourite game was my round 6 against Klaus Bischoff, check it out! I also managed a draw with black against Nigel Short who won the tournament and gained 21 rating points.