New Tournaments

Hi all

You will by now have received your invites for the new unrated tournaments.

Lorem has taken on the responsibility of inviting people to the rated tournaments and is currently working his way through the important 1.d4 d5 openings. We will give you the chance to have a go at the same openings in the unrated tournaments where you can try out different lines or explore your own ideas in pracice without worrying about losing points.

The promised exploration of the French Defence has just started! The first variation to explore is the advance (3.e5). A common opening with lots of possibilities. The next one we will look at will be the Winawer variation. I'll post some analysis and theory on the French - it is my pet opening and I have played a lot of games with it (funnily enough, I'm yet to lose when playing white against the French!). So far I have 8 books on the French defence, but you can never have enough!

We have also started a new tournament series covering the more daring replies to 1.d4. The first tournament features the Dutch defence (1.d4 f5). We will also look at the Grünfeld, the Benoni and any other interesting replies that spring to mind.

Don't worry folks, we'll get to e4 e5 and the Indian replies to d4 eventually!

Play well

JJ