Sorry for the late write up. Last week was hectic being in the Gold Coast for the Oceania Zonal (20th-26th June) and after that the Gold Coast Open plus a couple of days extra playing tourist. We left Melbourne early Saturday morning and arrived to no sun, dark clouds and rain. For me the first two rounds went smoothly but in round 3 I was paired with Arianne Caoili (2nd Seed) after forgetting my theory my position fell apart :(. The next round featured an unfortunate incident about talking to Ga during my games but i bounced back after that winning my next 4games and guaranteeing a WIM title for myself. In the last round I lost quite quickly meaning me and Ga need to do some more opening work! The round was an early start I also mentally relaxed but my opponent played very well and deserved her point which gave her the WFM title. Gawain also seconded GM elect David Smerdon who came 1st in the Men’s Zonal! After the Zonal I decided to take a break from chess originally with the idea of shopping and with the sun finally coming out spending some time by the beach but Gawain had other ideas and being a good girlfriend I thought it was in my best interest to be there to support him and feed him as there was 4rounds in one day and 3 on the next. Gawain played well winning his first 3 games but lost the last game on Saturday after confusing himself with which winning line to play against IM Puchen Wang. He made a comeback though winning all the games on Sunday including a win against Max Illingworth who had beaten Puchen in the previous round. Gawain finished on 6/7 half a point ahead of Puchen, Max, Dave Smerdon and Stephen Solomon. Unusully all his opponents were younger than him.
After that we spent a day screaming at Movie World after getting the fright of our lives on the Scooby Doo rollercoaster ride which we thought was a mere haunted house – for a few seconds we were deceived before the carriage rose and we accelerated backwards in the dark and then tossed around the corners. Me and Ga then decided to go to the “Kid Zone” instead of trying to be daredevils.
Now back in (windy & cold) Melbourne with Puchen this week they will be playing in the South African Open online via ChessCube www.chesscube.com. Games starting at 2.30am AEST. Will try and start to get into a routine and I’ll try and update! After this we will be going back to NZ for a 2days before leaving to go to Malaysia/Thailand then back to England.
Ciao
P.S. Not sure why the blog went down but hopefully all sorted now