Happy New Years to all our readers. Hope you enjoyed having your holiday break and had lots of fun. Ga and I had a quiet night in as guess who was lucky enough to get the norovirus! Yes, us two. I got it first and unfortunately passed it on to Ga who managed to draw against GM Glenn Flear in Round 4!
We are now all better now and ready for our Round 6 opponents today, Gawain playing the Italian GM Daniele Vocaturo and I’m playing my friend WIM Fiona Steil-Antoni. I first met Fiona when we both were playing at the World Youths 2005 in Belfort, France which was a disastrous event. I remember wanting to go to the Worlds after hearing how much fun people had in Greece the previous year but I was super disappointed with my only Worlds.
Our nights have been quiet and the weather here in Hastings started out wet,windy and cold which is normal for winter time but I’ve been pleasantly surprised with Hastings which highlight must be the Old Town with it’s quirky shops and cafes compared to the generic town center with all the high street shops. The last time we were in Hastings was in 2008 when I first met Ga 2 months previously in Germany during the Dresden Olympiad. We stayed at the Travelodge which is fine if not a bit basic and spent most night at the Pig and Paradise. We the didn’t really explore Hastings but now I can see the positive bits. Yesterday was a very nice day, I even spotted a chess player lying in the sun before the game. I thought that was a bit much but Gawain pointed out that the English need as much sun as they can get! Which is true.
Now in 2013, both Ga and I are on 100% with 1 win a piece. He beat GM Keith Arkell yesterday in a Czech-Benoni which became a King indian style position. You can view the previous games on the main Hastings website. I managed to beat a 12 year old in an endgame though he had the cheek to offer me a draw when I had 2 connect pawns up in a rook+king endgame. I did fluff around a bit as I absolutely did not want to mess it up but I managed to convert eventually.
