Category: Tournaments
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Politiken Cup
It’s summertime and probably the peak time of year if you are a chess professional. There are many tournaments all over Europe that can be so fun to play in. Last year we went to Ikaros and spent a lovely week there. Like last year, Gawain is now playing in the Politiken Cup held in…
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Apologies! & Gawain now in Iceland.
It probably shows that we don’t update as often as we would like as I checked a couple of days ago the website but found myself unable to access it. It seems we didn’t pay our hosting fees (messages were sent to spam) and was actually very close to having our website deleted forever. I…
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A sunny week in June
Early June I played in the Swiss Rapid Chess Masters, a well organised one day tournament in Pfaffikon on Lake Zurich. I received a pleasant surprise on arrival with a gift of a bag of Swiss chocolates waiting for me in my room. The weather was really good and I decided to take a walk…
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Politiken Cup
After a week off in the beautiful island of Ikaria in Greece. Gawain is back at work in Denmark. He’s currently playing in the Politiken Cup (also known as the Copenhagen Chess Festival but not in Copenahgen) and is joint 2nd= with 4.5/5. Our Aussie friends are also playing in the tournament, GM Dave Smerdon, FM…
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Recent developments
So my intention was to write a tournament update for each of my tournaments played since the Icelandic League but that isn’t really viable so I’ve decided to round it all up in one update. Going back to March I played the Reykjavik Open. I started with a couple of quick wins but then…
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Zalakaros Open – Round up
Our time in Zalakaros came and went so quickly! It feels like we’ve been here forever (just over a week) but we haven’t been able to do so much. It’s weird when I’m explaining to our non chess playing friends what your schedule is like when you are playing a tournament. They really can’t believe…
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Zalakaros Open – Quick update
My plane from London was delayed so it meant I got to Budapest about 1am. Gawain caught an earlier flight in and I caught a shuttle bus to our hotel which is about a 10 minute walk from the bus station. Trying to prounounce Zalakaros isn’t as easy as it seems and at our hotel…
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Zalakaros Chess Festival
Today we are off to Hungary and before you go thinking I’m not playing a First Saturday! I found the Zalakaros Chess Festival on the FIDE Other tournaments, it has a good prize fund and is very strong! The A Group is meant for 2400+ but I’ve asked the organizer if I could play in it…
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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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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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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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Scottish Championships
I know it’s been a long time since the website was last updated and for that I apologise. It’s been a very busy couple of months; Sue started a full time job that has given her very little time to write anything while we moved out of our flat share and into a little 2…
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Southend Easter Congress
I promised to write up my experience in Southend, particularly the incident in the last round. I delayed publishing it online as I wanted to give the organisers time to respond. Below is the letter I sent them which outlines my grievances around the last round. Dear Sir, I am writing to complain about the…
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Reykjavik Open 2013 – Round up
This is my third time playing the Reykjavik Open and we again played in last year’s impressive new venue: Harpa, the picturesque concert hall in Reykjavik’s harbour. I remember last year noise was a bit of an issue but the organisers seem to have done a good job and there was only one day with…
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Reykjavik Open
The Reykjavik Open started yesterday and there were quite a few upsets! The young Norweigen Sebastian Mihajlov 2059 held GM Ling Diren 2709 to a draw after the Chinese GM missed a win in the middlegame. Some other upsets include Ingibjorg Birgisdottir beaing IM David Miedema a 581 point difference. Gawain started off yesterday with a win…