Category: Updates
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Happy Easter! A long and much overdue update
When we started Gawain’s website we had such bold ideas but life got busy and it was something that we did not prioritize as it’s time-consuming and doesn’t pay at all! But I know that we have some readers and fans who enjoy the content so that was always nice to know. I now see…
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Weekend in Dundee and Gawain featured in Sueddeutsche Zeitung
After arriving back from St Petersburg, exhausted – I had to go back to work for a few days before we had another weekend away, this time visiting Gawain’s parents in Dundee, Scotland. Gawain’s mum, Tanya, is doing a degree in Environmental Law so they have moved to Dundee from Enniskillen for a year. It…
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A busy August
I’m writing this on a very comfortable train south from Madrid. I’m on my way back to Linares to play in the Spanish League for Sestao. Last year everything went perfectly for us but it’ll be a tough proposition to hold on to the title. I thought my dash from Hull was slightly crazy but…
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British KO
We are back in London and it’s been quite strange. After being away for 3 months and with the last month spent in Sheffield my pace of life has definitely slowed down, so coming back into the manic rush that is London meant that I wasn’t quite hip to it. I got myself squashed in…
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Munich 1836 and the British Knockout
I made my debut for Gawain’s Munich 2nd team on Sunday. We flew over Saturday morning and spent a lovely but frosty evening in Munich. We went to Feuerzangenbowle to drink mulled wine (I had the little kids version) from the largest cauldron and then to the famous Augustiner-Bräu for dinner. Last year we were lucky…
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Kilkenny
So the “main event” didn’t quite go to plan for us. We came a day early because trying to catch the early morning flight on Friday didn’t seem like a good idea for me. We were lucky that our time in Ireland coincided with our friends Chris and Amanda (Aussies but we forgive them!) and…
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We have internet! And a Successful 4NCL Weekend
You would have seen after my big announcement things have been quiet on the update front. It’s not really been my fault as we have now moved to Sheffield and we only got internet today! It was a real hassle setting up with Virgin as it didn’t work and we switched to SSE- today I was waiting…
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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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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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Bunratty Masters
If you haven’t heard of Bunratty, you have been missing out. This fun Irish weekender takes place in a small town (I’m not sure you could even call it that) alongside the N18 the main road between Limerick & Galway. There’s the Bunratty Castle, a couple of souvenir stores and Durty Nelly’s the local pub.…
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4NCL This weekend Rd 3 & 4
We are currently at the Holiday Inn Birmingham Airport waiting for our pairings for the 3rd & 4th round of the Four Nations Chess League. My team White Rose will be facing the Sambuca Sharks today and Gawain playing for Guildford will be facing Blackthorne. In the first weekend held in November Guildford 1 (who…
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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…
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Better late than never. Big Announcement!
I’m writing this from Lund, in Sweden, where this evening I’ll be playing in the first Cellavision Chess Cup. The schedule is slightly strange, four rapid games this evening, followed by four standard games over the weekend. Apparently this is quite popular in Sweden and I’m looking forward to trying it. The list of players…
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Apologies! & Gawain now in Iceland.
It probably shows that we don’t update as often as we would like as I checked a couple of days ago the website but found myself unable to access it. It seems we didn’t pay our hosting fees (messages were sent to spam) and was actually very close to having our website deleted forever. I…