Category: Updates
-
4NCL Final Weekend, Round 9,10 & 11
The final weekend of the Four Nations Chess League otherwise known as 4ncl was held this past bank holiday weekend. For those of you not from the UK , a bank holiday is effectively a public holiday and is called that as it was traditionally when the banks shut shop. Firstly we should congratulate 3 players who…
-
What’s On
MAY 2012 TWIC is very good at keeping up to date with the latest tournaments on calendars, but there are some that are still missed. From now on, at the beginning of each month, I’ll include a list of up and coming tournaments that you should keep an eye out on. This will be mainly…
-
Italian Club Championships 2012
Hello dear readers, Don’t worry the game of the month is on its way, but for now I’ll give a brief recap of my most recent tournament – the Italian Club Championships in Arvier, Val d’Aosta. This was my first time playing in the top division, Serie Master, and I made my debut for Chieti.…
-
Bundesliga 2011/ 2012 Round-Up
Apologies again for a long break between posting but again I’ve been very busy. I promise to update as much as possible now while I have a bit of time at home. This year I made my debut for SC Remagen in the German Bundesliga. The top division is composed of 18 teams with 8…
-
Game of the Month April 2012
Apologies for missing out March’s GOTM but I’m been really busy! Updates on the Reykjavik Open and European Individual Championships will be written when I get time, but for now here’s the GOTM. After winning my first four rounds I started being paired up with the big boys. After draws with White against Nikita Vitiugov…
-
A reader’s questions answered!
Hi everyone, We are still awaiting final confirmation but according to the final standings published on Chess Results, Gawain finished in 15th place therefore qualifying for the 2013 World Cup. This is an amazing achievement and I’m sure he’ll be working hard to play in Tromsø. These questions were asked by Colin Patterson last December and Gawain has…
-
Express update
Today is Round 6 and again Gawain is on the top board facing with the white pieces, French GM Laurent Fressinet. Laurent is actually married to pro poker player and IM Almira Skripchenko.You can watch the live games here. Here they are together with their young daughter. So far there has been many upsets in…
-
London to Sofia to Plovdiv
I arrived into Bulgaria earlier on today after a hectic week, I worked yesterday from 9am until 11pm then tried to sleep around 12am (Friday) but kept stirring. I find it so difficult to sleep when I know I need to get up in only a few hours time but then I make myself even more tired…
-
Horses and Sharks..
This time our trip to Iceland was more relax. As Gawain mentioned in his last post, we both flew over early to play in the Icelandic chess league. Its size and depth is amazing for such a small country. I always feel at home in Iceland, even if the weather is greyer and colder then…
-
European Individual Championsip
It’s time again for this super strong tournament. Last year, Gawain was 104th seed!! Here’s the starting list for the 2012 edition where there are 15 2700+ players and the Top 200 players are 2450+! It’s a very tough tournament, where you need to be well prepared as there is so much strong opposition.
-
Icelandic Club Championships – March 2012
Thursday evening we headed over to Heathrow for a flight to Keflavik, Iceland. The flight was a little delayed and, with very windy weather over Iceland, very bumpy but we arrived safely and were at the hotel by 2am Friday morning. Simon Williams was on the same flight but couldn’t make it onto the bus to…
-
Tomorrow is the last Round..
Here are tomorrow’s pairings. Play starts earlier at 13:00 Local time (which is also the same timezone as London). Round 9 on 2012/03/13 at 13:00 Bo. No. Name Rtg Pts. Result Pts. Name Rtg No. 1 6 GM Hou Yifan 2639 6½ 7 GM Caruana Fabiano 2767 1 2 5 GM Sokolov Ivan 2653 6½…
-
Reykjavik Open 2012
The Reykjavik Open starts in a week’s time. This year Gawain (so far) is 5th seed alongside 2700s GM Caruana and GM Navara. I also note that the current Women’s World Champion Hou Yifan will play – if you weren’t in the know she performed amazingly well in Gibraltar earlier this year. Hopefully she’ll be…
-
Bunratty Weekender
Last weekend Sue and I made the trip over to Shannon airport to play in one of the big two Irish weekend tournaments (the other is Kilkenny). Thanks to Gary O’Grady’s very generous sponsorship this year’s tournament was the strongest weekender I’ve ever seen and must have been the strongest ever tournament in Ireland. Nigel…
-
4NCL and NEW! Bi monthly F.E.B
I couldn’t update that about the 4NCL during the weekend as that would have given away that Gawain and I were in Sunningdale about to play! There was still snow at the venue (have you seen the temperatures in Europe?) but at least London is now a nice and balmy 7degrees. 4NCL saw both of…
-
Game of the Month – February 2012
While Sue’s been busy writing on our road trip I haven’t forgotten about my Game of the Month (actually I had but Sue emailed me to remind me!). I decided to choose one of my own games. Overall the tournament was a bit of a disaster from a rating point of view, losing to Chris…