Not too many moves played today!
Cherniaev 1/2 Arkell
Eames 1/2 Kjartansson
Slavin 1-0 Rudd
Gormally 1/2 Poobalasingam
Ansell 1/2 Galego
Alexander Cherniaev, Keith Arkell and Alexei Slavin lead on 3/4.
Rounds 1-4 games are available for download via the crosstable.
The weekend Fide section has finished. It has been a busy weekend and now I and can a deep breath sit back and relax a little bit! I have found a new sense of admiration for chess organisers as it is a rather hectic job! Dealing with a loud outburst from an individual, getting up early to take down poker tables, put chess equipment up, asking the gym next door to turn the music down… Anyway I will give a quick report on how things are going…
Ansell 0-1 Cherniaev
Galego 1/2 Gormally
Poobalasingam 1/2 Slavin
Rudd 1-0 Eames
Kjartansson 0-1 Arkell
Keith Arkell and Alexander Cherniaev lead with 2.5/3.
Cherniaev 1-0 Kjartansson
Arkell 1-0 Rudd
Eames 1/2 Poobalasingam
Slavin 1/2 Galego
Gormally 0-1 Ansell
Jonathan Rowson and Mark Rich finished on 4.5/5 in the Open, Rowson won the blitz play-off.
Round 1 games are available on BritBase (thanks to John Saunders).
Gormally 1/2 Cherniaev
Ansell 0-1 Slavin
Galego 1-0 Eames
Poobalasingam 1/2 Arkell
Rudd 1-0 Kjartansson
Mark Ruston and Paul Dupre lead the Open with 3/3, Jonathan Rowson on 2.5.
Peter Ackley the arbiter for the FIDE open made the pairings for round 1 late yesterday. Peter tossed for colours on board 1, heads White for Rowson, tails Black for Rowson. As you can see it came in tails. Anyway here is the draw:
With the 1st round of the Big Slick FIDE section coming up this Friday I thought that it would be a good idea to give a quick profile of each player, with some odds on who is going to win the event. Now before I proceed, you have to remember that I am not a bookmaker. The odds are meant to be a bit of fun so please do not take offence! The tournament is wide open and anyone has a chance of winning. Anyway lets have a look!
I was recently reading the excellent Brixton and Streatham blog site, http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.com/, which had a piece on Chessboxing. Now the concept of Chessboxing has always intrigued me as it seems to be a interesting way to show chess in a new light. Whether it publicises it in a good way or makes a mockery of it is open to debate, but I would consider giving it a bash.
In the 3rd round I was paired against Hans Richter, a player I had not faced before and the game was a real mess, with pieces flying about all over the place. The game could have gone either way at many moments and I felt very relieved when my opponent put out his hand to give me the game, this was followed by a lively bit of analysis where we decided it was a better idea to have a cigarette then try to work out what was going on!
Tournament organiser Sean Hewitt has started running a number of successful fide open tournaments in the last couple of years. I thought that I would try my hand in the Amersham open which was due to take place at the end of May. The venue was a grand building stuck in the country by the town of Amersham. Take a look at the view from the outside bar…
