Hey again people. Sorry for another delay in posting. Since getting back from Rome I’ve been recharging my batteries ready for my extremely hectic next seven weeks. I’m off to Northern Ireland to see my parents and brothers, and of course old Robbie the dog, early tomorrow morning before heading down to Galway for a simul on the Thursday evening and then a weekender.
Returning on the Monday, I start my league calendar with a game in England before heading off to Reykjavik for the Icelandic league with Sue on Thursday. We’re planning on spending a pleasant week there, hopefully the chess will go well too, and then I have around 24 hours back at home and then continuing my team chess with a debut for Remagen in the Bundesliga. Then almost a week at home followed by an unusual individual tournament before representing England at the European Team Champs at the start of November.
During these couple of weeks I have of course done a fair bit of chess preparation but less with Sue than I had hoped before she returned to the chess board at the Sunningdale e2e4 Congress winning the U2000 rating prize with 3/5 and racing back over 2000. I also followed the World Cup in Siberia. The format is a bit of a lottery but I was glad to see Peter Svidler taking first after a month of exhausting battles. I’ll write more about the tournament soon but for now I’ll limit myself to Congratulations Peter!
Meanwhile I’ve been satisfying my rugby craving watching the Rugby World Cup. The most notable upset so far was Ireland defeating Australia, a result made sweeter by the fact I watched the game together with an Aussie, our good friend Manuel. He also gave me a driving lesson last weekend, and as I didn’t crash once, I think we can call it a success 🙂 Unfortunately with the games being played in New Zealand I’m having to get up very early to watch but at least then I can be productive afterwards. Thanks to Ireland’s success it looks like it will be a Northern hemisphere side (England, France, Ireland, Wales) against a Southern hemisphere one (New Zealand, Australia, South Africa) in the final. A mouth watering prospect!
Meanwhile, the European Club Cup has just started and White Rose, the team I played for as a kid and have recently rejoined) are playing. The official website seems to be struggling but Matt is sure to provide entertaining updates over on his blog.