This weekend the Four Nations Chess League was on as well as the French League,German Bundesliga, and the newly renamed Tata Steel tournament. Here in England, Pride and Prejudice beat Betsson convincingly with 7-1.
Round 4 was where P&P needed to show their strength whilst playing Wood Green Hilsmark Kingfisher 2(WGHK2) who’s first team is P&P’s main rival. Sunday rounds are early and usually the night before is where everyone is socialising. Looking at the boards during the round I didn’t have a bad feeling but not a good one either but P&P managed to win 5.5-2.5 with Gawain maintaining his 4/4 score and running over 2600.
This week Gawain is working on something new and hopefully innovative. Gawain will be making his first DVD with GingerGM with hopefully a release date in March. If you have not seen the Killer Dutch by Grandmaster Simon Williams, it comes highly recommended especially if you are a beginner like me. The DVD is easy to understand and straightforward and a definitely better if you are not into books or moving pieces on a board then rearranging them again.
Next up is the 2011 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival where Gawain is currently 21st(!) seed. This is a very strong tournament and a great opportunity for Gawain to play some top level chess. Gawain has also now confirmed the Reykjavik Open. These tournaments will give Gawain the games he needs to get into his eventual goal of top 100.
Finally, we would like to say good luck to our friends playing in the Oceania Zonal starting next week! We would also like to say a belated congratulations to our friends GM Peter Wells & Melanie Buckley for welcoming their beautiful daughter Emily into the world!