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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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Summer Holiday: Indonesia, Part Two
After a lovely week in Malaysia we headed with my aunt and cousins to Yogyakarta on the island of Java. I was slightly nervous about flying there as I remember seeing in the news the Air Asia crash but my fears were unfounded. Occasionally I think about plane crashes when we are flying but I…
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4NCL and My Birthday
This year I had to play a game on my 26th Birthday, I can’t actually remember the last time that happened. I’ve heard more often than not people don’t like playing on their birthday but I wont this year so it was fine :-). We arrived back from sunny Bali early on Wednesday morning and…
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Summer Holiday: Malaysia, Part One
I decided that we needed to have a holiday in February as we hadn’t had any sun for the last 5 months(!). I also noticed that we had not visited my family in Malaysia for 4 years so it felt like it was time to head back to my Mum’s hometown, Sungai Pelek. Gerry Graham…
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4NCL & Holiday time in Malaysia and Indonesia
After a few days at home we headed to Northampton for Round 5 & 6 of the 4NCL. We missed rounds 3 & 4 while in Wijk, and our teams played each other in Round 3. White Rose lost but we managed to get some points off them! This was our first time playing in…
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Oberliga
After a few days of much needed time at home, we flew on Saturday morning to Munich to play for our team, Munich 1836 (you can follow their tweets here). When we landed back in Doncaster from Amsterdam/Wijk Gawain needed a few days of R&R after such a long tournament. It’s impressive how your body…
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Tata Steel Challengers Winner
I’m so happy that Gawain won the Tata Steel Challengers (on tiebreak) with 9/13 along with Markus Ragger. The tie break in use was individual result which favoured Ga as he beat Markus in Round 6. Like most of you I was watching the last game and couldn’t bear to watch the proceedings (especially not in real…
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Impressions of Wijk aan Zee
It’s been cold, windy and sunny. Soon I’ll have to go out for a run to keep up with my fitness. That’s one of the difficult things of travelling so much keeping a routine especially when you are “stuck” in one place. I was told there was a gym in the nearby town of Beverwijk…
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Happy New Year & Tata Steel Challengers
We have arrived in Wijk aan zee and today will be the first round of the Tata Steel Masters and Challengers Chess Tournament. There are also many amateur events happening and everyone gets to play in the same hall. The round for Gawain’s game will start at 13.30 local time and is played in the…
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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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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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Announcement and exploring the United States
Hello readers (again), I hope some of you are still reading our blog and yet again I’m so very sorry for not updating more often. Things have been manic job wise for the last few months and now I’m officially unemployed. From now on things will be very different in our household. We are leaving…
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