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Cork – Amateur Point of View.
So I had to book a 10pm flight (which meant a half point bye in the first round) from Heathrow to Cork as I left it quite late to book and the prices for earlier flights had shot up! It’s really easy for me to get to Heathrow and my bosses invited me to stay for…
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Dubai Open
Gawain’s now in Dubai arriving last night. He plays in the 16th Dubai Open(Official Website in Arabic). Last year, I saw this tournament was quite strong but he already had something in his calendar so we decided to make it a priortiy. Little did we know that I would go to Dubai in February with…
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4NCL Round 7 & 8
White Rose has been performing well in the 4NCL. I put it down to good team spirits. This is the second time I have played for White Rose, the first being in 2008 when I was a replacement for Anya Corke who had a family emergency. Since then I’ve switched teams every year, playing for…
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Icelandic League February – March 2014
Wednesday evening I returned to Iceland for the second half of the Icelandic league. The first half of the season had gone very well, see http://gawainjones.co.uk/return-to-iceland/ and we were fighting for the top couple of places and qualification for the European Club Cup which will be in Bilbao in October. I want to start this update…
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Bunratty 2014
Last year I was unable to play Bunratty as it clashed with my time in Iceland but with the dates moved to earlier in February this year Sue and I were able to return to Ireland’s premier weekend tournament. I had been over at my parents’ and took the long, slow bus down the west…
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And back again – last few days in NZ
The flight back from Nelson to Auckland was uneventful. I remember Air NZ having touch screen entertainment screens on their bigger planes but Nelson is a tiny airport and we travelled back on a tiny propeller plane so there was no luxury! We arrived back into Auckland in the late evening and had just two…
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Nelson and the Abel Tasman National Park
Sue’s snowed under with work and got a bad cold so I promised to take over reporting on part three of our New Zealand trip (although Sue’s the one that’s made it look nice with photos etc.). After spending the week with our friends in New Zealand we flew over the Cook Strait to the…
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Wellywood, Otaki & Raumati.
I hadn’t explained before but our trip was divided up into 3: time with family, then with friends and a mini moon! After spending the first week in Auckland with my family we then headed down to Wellington, the capital, which we both love. We lived here while I studied and we made great friends there…
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Aotearoa
So after the fancy London Chess Classic dinner the next morning we started our journey heading towards New Zealand! Tania Sachdev invited us out to Mahiki (the joint where the Royal Princes use to party) but we had to decline as I wanted to get a good night’s rest before starting our 27 hour journey!…
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Holiday Blues & 4NCL
So now we are back in the UK. We arrived at Heathrow on Thursday afternoon then we had a day to rest before coming up to Hinckley Island for the 4NCL. Am I looking forward to playing? I think so, but let’s see how I get on in my games. Yesterday at 2pm I was…
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London Classic 2013
Hello all. I’m writing this from Auckland, in the pleasant New Zealand Summer, at my in-laws. I decided to try and give you some Christmas reading with an update on the London Classic from my point of view. NOTE – Currently I’m having a problem with the games relayer here so you can find this report…
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Round 3 & 4 of the Super 16.
I can’t figure out what to call the “London Chess Classic”, how about “the Super 16 (though we only knew the names of 14 until a couple of days ago, or simply “the Classic”. The event this year isn’t your “classical time control” but instead obviously a rapidplay. I think that “the Super 16” is…
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London Chess Classic Rounds 1 & 2
So yesterday came and went so quickly! I was at work but I managed to bring my kid along for the end of Round 1 and she was well behaved. Whenever I ask her “What is Ga doing?” She replies “Playing chess” and when I ask “What does that mean” she very sweetly puts her…
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PRO-Business Cup & London Chess Classic Starts Today
Today is the the day, Round 1 of the Rapidplay! I’m so excited!!! The qualifiers have been confirmed with only 2 players from the FIDE Open getting to 4/4. Istratescu and Sutovsky have now joined Groups A & D respectively. Istratescu played 84 moves to get the full point, but if he had halved out…
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2013 London Chess Classic
So it’s been a long time since I’ve last written and I’ve been meaning to, but does the thought count in this case? A lot has happened since, chess wise I was on a bad streak, 0/7! I was going to write a post about it soon after it happened, but I decided to take…
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