Category: Tournaments
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Happy New Year!
Happy New Years to all our readers (if there are any of you left). We have just flown back from St Petersburg, Russia – where we both participated in the World Rapid and Blitz, Gawain in the Open section and I was able to get a wildcard into the Women’s Section. The tournament itself ran…
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Faroes Open
We’ve had the last few months off from playing chess and we are now in the very beautiful Faroe Islands playing in the Faroes Open held in the village of Sandavágur. Many of you might wonder where the Faroe Islands is and I’ll pinpoint it below on the map. I have heard of the Faroes before thanks…
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English Women’s Championship.
Last weekend I headed to West Bromwich to play in the English Women’s Championship. I was 2nd seed in a tournament with 11 players. Last year I think there was only 6 players so the number of entrants had definitely improved. It was strange having a swiss with so few players as 4 players ended up getting…
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European Individual 2017, Minsk
Gawain left Sheffield on Sunday to head down to London to catch his direct flight to Minsk, Belarus. Over the weekend we saw the mess that BA had and we were very glad we weren’t flying that weekend. His trip on Monday went smoothly and he arrived in a new country. So far no complaints except that…
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4th Purtichju Open, Corsica
I’m pleased to announce that we will be heading to Corsica in July for some sun and chess! Gawain has played in Corisca 4 times also playing previously in the strong rapid knock out tournament in Bastia. You can see the starting list for the main tournament here. Or you can check out the official website…
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Dubai Open Champion
Round 2 was a good day in our family as we scored 2/2. Unfortunately in Round 3 we didn’t do so well with Gawain playing GM Alan Pichot again and I played our friend IM Lorin D’Costa, one of four English players here! There was a 750 rating points difference between my opponents between the…
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Dubai Open
After our time in Sharjah we were glad to have a change of scenery as we moved to the next hotel, the JW Marriot in Deira. It’s in a different part of Dubai to where I stayed last time and there are definitely more people living around here.We also had the weekend off from playing…
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Sharjah Masters Final Report
In Round 4 the two separated pairing groups joined and that meant the top boards had players from my group that were between 2100-2220. Gawain had a very long game against a 10-11 year old Mittal Aditya. A very sweet looking boy. His game was 87 moves and his young opponent defended exceptionally well and only…
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1st Sharjah Masters
After a few relaxing weeks at home, we flew last Wednesday to Dubai to play in the 1st Sharjah Masters. We will head next to the Dubai Open with one rest day in between. We arrived at Dubai Airport around midnight Thursday and headed straight to the hotel which is right next to Sharjah’s airport.…
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Back in the UK
After 2 months in the United States, I’ve finally made it back to the UK. I panicked when I was in the taxi on the way to JFK as I realized I was travelling without my Biometrics Card which is needed every time I enter and exit the UK. Luckily for me they weren’t too…
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Millionaire Open, Atlantic City
We are now both in Atlantic City, New Jersey where Gawain is currently competing in the Millionaire Open. Unfortunately I don’t think you can become a millionaire this year as prizes as well as the entry fee was reduced from the previous editions. After we split up last time I headed to Texas (more on…
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A successful two weeks
On Saturday 9th April I headed back to Munich. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to play much for Munich 1836 this year but at least could drop in en-route to Dubai for the last round. We were in second place, ahead of the other Munich team (Tarrasch) by just one and a half board points, and…
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Gibraltar Masters – A good start to 2016
After our wonderful time in New Zealand we had a week to recover before I was off again. In the three weeks we were away new tenants had moved in and I spent a lot of the week tidying up after the mice and making the house habitable. Hopefully we’re starting to win the fight!…
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Gawain is the New Zealand Chess Champion
I didn’t want to write any posts before he actually finished his game so here is a delayed post a few days later. Gawain drew his final round against Brazilian GM Alexandr Fier and since all other results were already played it meant that he won the NZ Chess Championship with a score of 7.5/9.…
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Gawain leading the Tournament
Gawain is currently 5.5/6 and is playing White today against FM Alexei Kulashko. Alexei was on the Olympiad team in 2002 (as was I) but after that dropped off from the chess scene so it’s nice to see former players back in action. I can’t note much about the games as I haven’t been in…
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Abu Dhabi Masters
I’m writing this from the lobby of the Sofitel Hotel in Abu Dhabi. The tournament has just finished and at least I remembered how to play a little. Scored 6.5/9 and came 8th. Results. A big congratulations to my friend, Nils Grandelius, who had a great time and won the tournament. A cool $12,000 to…