• Kilkenny and Reykjavik Open 2012

    Kilkenny and Reykjavik Open 2012

    Gawain has headed over the Irish Sea via plane this time to play the Kilkenny Masters held in Kilkenny, Ireland. This year’s event included more or less the same players from the 2010 Kilkenny Masters with players such as Ivan Cheparinov, Sebastian Maze and Mark Hebden. Hopefully we’ll be able to check out the live games if…

  • British Rapidplay Champion!

    After the mad dash following the European Championships and then 4ncl, I took it fairly easy. I made my debut for Wood Green in the London League on Wednesday, defeating Tiruchirapalli Venkataraman in a long battle that went down to mutual time trouble. The team didn’t have as much trouble and we’re currently 11-0 up…

  • Kilkenny and London Chess Classic

    Kilkenny and London Chess Classic

    Gawain has confirmed his attendance for another Irish Weekender. Having been over to Ireland for Bunratty,Ennis as well as Galway this year (and I believe coming 1st in all of them..). Kilkenny has a strong line up including GMs Ivan Cheparinov, Sebastien Maze,Fabien Libiszewski, Alex Baburin and Mark Hebden. Next up will be the London…

  • European Team Championships – Porto Carras

    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…

  • Grand Prix is back..

    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…

  • 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…

  • European Team Chess Championship

    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…

  • Game of the Month – November

    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.…

  • Corsica – Round nine and knockout

    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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Corsica – Round Two

    Of course the big news of today was the Rugby. Glenn Flear headed over here early to join in watching the World Cup Final. To be honest, I didn’t think New Zealand played very well but their defences were strong and the All Blacks held on to defeat France 8-7 in a very tense game,…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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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