Author: Sue Maroroa
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2017 British Chess Champion
Before the tournament we were lucky to have GM Nils and WFM Ellen visiting us. It was a relaxing way to spend a few days. We played a lot of tennis, did lots of walking and introduced them to the “British way of life”. I’m so pleased to say that Gawain is the 2017 British…
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Spanish Chess League
Gawain will be playing an early morning last round tomorrow in the Spanish League, I think it starts 9.30am (!!) local time. His team Sestao Bizkaialdehas won the title with one round to spare. You can watch the games live on chess24. Gawain headed to Linares last Sunday and we went via London where we…
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4th Purtichju Open
I’m sorry I haven’t written in so long. It’s been a busy time for us and then when we got to Corsica we didn’t really have good internet. I did try to write an update but the connection was so terrible and I wasn’t able to even go to the new post page. We left…
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European Individual 2017, Minsk
Gawain left Sheffield on Sunday to head down to London to catch his direct flight to Minsk, Belarus. Over the weekend we saw the mess that BA had and we were very glad we weren’t flying that weekend. His trip on Monday went smoothly and he arrived in a new country. So far no complaints except that…
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4th Purtichju Open, Corsica
I’m pleased to announce that we will be heading to Corsica in July for some sun and chess! Gawain has played in Corisca 4 times also playing previously in the strong rapid knock out tournament in Bastia. You can see the starting list for the main tournament here. Or you can check out the official website…
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The Ups and the Downs
I feel like this is a subject I can write about. If you don’t know much about my chess abilities then I’ll start with the history of my chess career. I grew up in NZ and my dad Temu played chess and still does. He’s about 1700 on a good day! I learnt relatively late…
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Reykjavik Open 2017
After a relaxing Easter Break at home we went on to Reykjavik. While at home and looking at the calendar Gawain said “It feels so strange to not be playing chess over Easter” and I jokingly replied that “I’ve signed him up to play at the chess club!”. On our train to Birmingham Airport we received…
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Dubai Open Champion
Round 2 was a good day in our family as we scored 2/2. Unfortunately in Round 3 we didn’t do so well with Gawain playing GM Alan Pichot again and I played our friend IM Lorin D’Costa, one of four English players here! There was a 750 rating points difference between my opponents between the…
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Dubai Open
After our time in Sharjah we were glad to have a change of scenery as we moved to the next hotel, the JW Marriot in Deira. It’s in a different part of Dubai to where I stayed last time and there are definitely more people living around here.We also had the weekend off from playing…
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Sharjah Masters Final Report
In Round 4 the two separated pairing groups joined and that meant the top boards had players from my group that were between 2100-2220. Gawain had a very long game against a 10-11 year old Mittal Aditya. A very sweet looking boy. His game was 87 moves and his young opponent defended exceptionally well and only…
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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…