I hadn't played for a while before the event, but had done some prep at home and played a few successful training games. The tournament wasn't a disaster but was rather frustrating, as it seemed a long list of missed opportunities, but some of the...
Francis Best and Michael Bukojemski did a fine job, creating a chess filled day beginning with a blitz tournament before I began my lecture. The original proposal was that I would show my games with Andreikin and Caruana from last year's Dortmund ...
I made my Bundesliga debut this season in the March weekend. My teammates had been doing excellent work in my absence and we have a perfect record heading into the final weekend. On Sunday morning I played Luke McShane again, we seem to have playe...
Gibraltar is always noteable for the special events put together during the tournament, a spectacular highlight this year was the visit to St. Michael’s Cave after the first round, I had visited the caves before but sightseeing on a wet day with t...
The London Classic began with some exhibition games: the Pro Am event in the morning was won by Matthew Sadler and Daniel Lindner from Barclays. As it coincided with the very welcome BarcIaycard sponsorship deal with Chess in Schools and Communi...
The European Team Championship competition was held in a pleasant hotel in the centre of Warsaw, the organisers made a good job of airport transfers, providing reliable internet access and decent meals and playing conditions. The chess side of thi...
We got home from St Petersburg after 9pm on Thursday evening just in time to vote in the council elections.By Saturday morning we were on the road to Hinckley for the final 4NCL weekend, in fact it was also my first of the season and it was good t...
It was a pleasure to participate in The Alekhine Memorial. An unexpected treat at the the Paris opening which was held in the Louvre in fine style was a private guided tour of a few of the highlights including some up close personal time with La J...
Baden-Baden completed a perfect 15 wins in the very competitive Bundesliga. I have always enjoyed playing in this testing competition, and this season scored a solid 6/9. As far as I can see the only two flaws to the German league are the fact tha...
Battle on the Rock I would have been pretty happy with 7.5/10 before the event, but it shows how hard it is to win open events these days that 4 players managed to amass 8 points. One of the special appeals of the Gibraltar tournament is the varie...
After my debacle last year, I approached the London Chess Classic with a certain amount of trepidation, but after a good start winning a couple of decent games against Gawain Jones and Judit Polgar things went considerably better. However, I lost ...
Thank you in advance to everyone who reads my first blog for Chess.com! To bring things up to date, and because for a change I won a chess tournament, I am writing about my most recent event and will wrap up the LCC, Baden-Baden, and Gibraltar so...
