At the hotel there’s free access to google but not much else. Luckily I have gmail and so am able to check my email and send these updates to Sue who can upload them. The pairings only appeared online at 3.30 today, and with the opening ceremony at 4 and the venue 20minutes away there wasn’t too much time to prepare. I played an Icelandic 2110 called Erlingur Thorsteinsson and he seemed to play everything. He played 1.b3!? which I can’t remember facing before. I tried a sort of Kings Indian Attack reversed (if that makes sense) but it went a bit wrong and had to transpose to a Symmetrical English position where White should be a bit better. However he allowed me to sacrifice a pawn and free up my position creating a big central pawn masse which was enough to claim the point.
Tomorrow I’m off on the Golden Circle Tour – an early start at 8.45 and not allowing me too much time to prepare but hopefully it’ll be interesting and it forced me out of the bar early tonight! I’ll try and give you all photos over the next few days and hopefully some more good news results wise.