Hi everyone - it's been a while since my last post but I hope you'll understand I've been fairly busy. I've started broadcasting for chess.com over on twitch.tv with a new show - "Hack Attack". The idea is a 2 hour show where I play a mixture of ...
This week the 100th British Chess Championships got started, with many events taking place over the course of the next fortnight. The highlight is undoubtably the Championship itself with GM Gawain Jones returning as champion to defend his title a...
Last Saturday Kings Place near Kings Cross played host to probably the strongest one day event London has held in decades. The format was a 6 round swiss with 30 minutes each to complete the game. 187 players took part, 67 in the top section inclu...
On Monday night the biggest match of the London League season took place in The Plough - a pub right next to the British Museum. Wood Green were multiple times defending champions, fielding a team of 7 GMs, 4IMs and 1 FM over the 12 boards. Drun...
Obviously opening theory is important but if you don't keep up to date then it can sometimes do more harm than good. In the following game my opponent knew something about the opening but he wasn't aware of recent improvement for White and he ende...
Hi everyone. Just a quick blog post today. One of the big problems of playing many different types of chess (online bullet, blitz, rapid chess all the way up to a 'proper' 7 hour session) is that it can be hard to adjust to a new time control. ...
Last week I previewed the Bunratty Chess Festival which took place last weekend in the luxurious setting of the Bunratty Castle Hotel, in Ireland. The event, now in it's 20th year, continues to attract a very strong field due to it's legendary re...
Tomorrow morning I'm off to Bunratty, Ireland, to play in the Bunratty Masters weekend event that starts on Friday evening. Not only is it one of (if not the) strongest weekenders in the British Isles but it's also a fantastic social occasion - an...
Regular readers of my blog will know that I was hoping to try out the Sicilian as Black last weekend at the Imperial College Congress in London. Sadly it didn't work out as in my two games as Black I faced 1.d4 The good news is that I did in fact...
This may not be an issue for all players - if your main opening is already something combative (like a Modern, Alekhine or Sicilian Najdorf) then you can probably play it against everyone. You may even have the opposite problem - that of needing a...
So, we're coming to the end of another year but more importantly we're coming to the start of another Hastings International Congress! This always starts on December 28th, with 1 round a day (yes, even on New Year's Day) until January 6th. It's th...
So, for most of the year (as you can probably tell from my other blog posts) I'm not a full-time chessplayer. Instead I'm a coach who dabbles in other things, writing occasional articles, blogs etc. That's all about to change - well, for the next...
So, it's been another busy month for me. As usual I've spent most of it coaching, but for two weeks rather than doing this in London I went as part of a large group to the World Youth Championships in Maribor, Slovenia. The England team consisted...
One of the problems of being a full-time coach is that you don't actually get around to playing that much chess! Not that I'm complaining - I really do enjoy coaching - but it is nice to pick up the pieces in anger from time to time. As it happen...
I'd like to start by apologising for the amount of time it's taken my to write this final update - still, here it is and I hope you enjoy it! So we left it in my last blog after a disappointing 3-1 defeat of the Welsh women by Puerto Rico. After ...
So, we left off after Round 5 (and the Bermuda Party) and we rejoin to see the Welsh women facing a slightly higher ranked team from Uruguay. The match was hard fought, with all games ending decisively (in wins for Black): Bo. 86 Wales Rtg 2 -...
My last blog entry ended with Wales women beating Malta 4-0 and then facing Italy in round 5. Well, the match vs Italy was very exciting. They outrated us by about an average of 350 points a board so it was always going to be tough. Still, after ...
Time for an update from Istanbul. We arrived on Monday, the day before the first round and settled into our hotel. It's quite nice, with a swimming pool and air-conditioned rooms - the only downside is we're about 5km from the playing venue so we ...
So, here we are again - another two years have passed and it's time for the 2012 Chess Olympiad, this year held in Istanbul, Turkey. It's long been an ambition of mine to go to an Olympiad, after all it's the biggest collection of top chessplayer...
I played a couple of rapidplay games last night in the London Rapidplay league for West London. I managed to win my games and the team won 5-3 putting us in a strong position going into the last match of the season, which takes place next week. ...
In my latest blog post (blog.chess.com/Trendle/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-the-tactics-trainer) I talked about how to get the most out of using things like Chess.com's Tactics Trainer, using a method based around the idea of Forcing Moves. I promis...
It's been a while since my last blog update so here's a much longer (and more interesting!?) one than usual. I've not been playing as much chess recently as I would've liked (a few rapidplays and a blitz event which I managed to win notwithstandi...
The answer is.... yes! More on that later. The final 4NCL took place over the May Bank holiday weekend in Hinckley Island (in the middle of England basically). 3 Divisions (and a Divison 3 North at a seperate venue), 70+ teams, and about 500 playe...
This weekend the 4NCL (4 Nations Chess League) comes to a conclusion with each team playing 3 matches over a bank-holiday weekend. The current standings in Division one can be seen here: http://www.4ncl.livechess.co.uk/div1_201112/xtab-div1c-rd8....
So, after blundering terribly in my previous game (see previous post) it was off to the compete in the 4NCL (4 Nations Chess League) http://www.4ncl.co.uk/, the UK's strongest league. I play for Sambuca Sharks, a team in Division two. On the Satu...
