Category: Updates
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European Team Championships – Porto Carras
Hello all. Apologies for not updating during the tournament but I had very little time and the internet was sporadic at best. I started this before the last round, which I didn’t think I was going to play, but the situation changed and in the end I played all nine. I had the 4ncl straightaway…
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Grand Prix is back..
Well not played by Gawain but by Vugar Gashimov of Azerbajin against Bulgaria’s Ivan Cheparinov. I read somewhere that this was also the opening Luke McShane used a few years ago to beat Cheparinov! ###pgn###[Event “European Team Championship”] [Site “Porto Carras GRE”] [Date “2011.11.09”] [EventDate “2011.11.03”] [Round “7”] [Result “1-0”] [White “Vugar Gashimov”] [Black “Ivan…
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Full English Breakfast and November Ratings
Episode 14 One Year Anniversay: Bilbaolicious News is ready for listeners! You should really support these guys who are always up for a good laugh. It is especially for the readers who don’t keep up to date with the latest Chess News from Chessvibes or Chessbase. I’m pleased to announce that Gawain is currently Number…
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European Team Chess Championship
Currently Gawain is in Greece, representing England alongside (in board order) 1. GM Mickey Adams 2. GM Nigel Short 3. GM David Howell 4. GM Gawain Jones 5. GM Nick Pert Yesterday, England beat Latvia 2.5-1.5 and today they face the home team Greece. Here you can view the live games, as long as they…
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Game of the Month – November
Lots of interesting chess this month so it was a tough decision what to examine. I considered a game of Kramnik’s as he has had some good results recently and is 2800 on the list published yesterday. However in the end I decided to examine this game between two players who always produce exciting encounters.…
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Corsica – Round nine and knockout
Friday morning I had White against Bulgarian GM Ivan Cheparinov. I again used the repertoire in my How to Beat the Sicilian. We actually followed a line from the first game in the entire book! He deviated at move nine but I followed the same plan. I reached a position with more space and a…
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Corsica – Rounds Seven and Eight
I was too exhausted to update after my round seven game. Black against Tal Baron, another young IM who has a rating above 2500. I expected him to play 1.e4 but he surprised me with 1.d4 when I decided to repeat the Dutch. He played the 2.Nc3 sideline but didn’t play the most critical move…
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Corsica – Round Six
A double round day meant not so much time to prepare and as my opponent seemed to play lots of different things I took it pretty easy. He chose 1…e5 and 2…Nc6. I decided to go for a Scotch and we followed the critical game Shirov-Kramnik from Wijk aan Zee in January. I deviated on…
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Corsica Rounds Three, Four and Five.
Apologies for not updating yesterday. I was simply too shattered after a 74 move game in the second game and only got back to the room at about 10.30pm. But let’s go in order. Round three I had Black against a Bulgarian IM, Radoslav Dimitrov. He played the English and I chose a sort of…
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Corsica – Round One
This evening I played the opening round of the Corsica Masters. I was up against a kid from Switzerland: Alexis Skouvaklis, which sounds like he has Greek roots. I was Black and wheeled out the Dragon. This was actually my first pure Dragon since the draw with Mickey Adams at the British but I keep…
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A return to Corsica
I managed to catch a cold while in Germany, possibly from my team captain. A very short pause in my chess commitments meant I could have my first day off in a while on Monday (lots of board games with Sue and Tom – I may be addicted!) and generally relax and try to fight…
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My Bundesliga Début
This weekend I travelled to Cologne-Bonn airport to make my first appearance for SC Remagen. Our manager, Peter Noras, kindly met me at the airport despite feeling unwell and gave me a lift to our headquarters in Andernach. We stayed the night there and then were ferried across the 120km or so to Mulheim where…
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Glacier Walk,Lobster Soup and (Errant) Northern Lights
Our tour started at 11.30am and would finish roughly 12 hours later. It was a long day, but an amazing adventure. Our guide was Jon, who was very friendly and extremely knowledgeable about all things especially geology. He is also one of Iceland’s rescue guides (Good to know!). I had a lot of questions especially…
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Mátar
We arrived back in England earlier today and, after a slight delay at the airport picking up an errant scarf, I travelled home and Sue off to work. We were both rather exhausted as we managed less than five hours sleep last night (in search of the errant Northern Lights but Sue will expand on…
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Iceland from a tourist’s point of view
Expect the chess update from Gawain in a few days but I’ll just say he finished on a score of 3.5/4! Our team ended up on 11 points, 7th on the table but with all to play for in the next weekend which is just before the Reykjavik Open. Now that the chess is over,…
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Icelandic Adventures
We arrived Midnight Thursday night after a delayed departure from Heathrow Airport. We were kind enough to be picked up by one of our team mates (Arnar). We didn’t make any firm plans after hearing we play 4 rounds over Friday (evening), Saturday (double rounds) and Sunday (morning). Yesterday, the weather was lovely with clear…