I am sorry about the delay in putting up any new posts on gingergm. The problem is that I have just moved into a new flat and I am finding it a bit tricky to get the internet set up.

Hopefully this will be sorted in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime I am popping over to my mates house to get this up!

I have posted below a game I had against Ian Sharpe of Farnham chess club. It was played this Monday and I have to say, I did immensely enjoy playing it! Check out the cheeky move 25 Kd1!!

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(I would like to thank my 4ncl team captain, Chris Rice, for the following report that he wrote concerning the last 4ncl weekend)

OK so it was a disappointing outcome with us getting relegated but we still had a great time despite this. I know it’s a bit of a chore for me to travel from Dubai each time but each weekend brings something new and there were loads of incidents in this one.   

An example is John whose mobile went off seven moves into the game on Bank Holiday Monday and it was heart warming to see how the Jutes of Kent rallied around and were so supportive to him afterwards…

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I am very pleased to announce that we have just finished filming the first stages of Ginger GM’s next DVD!

As you may have guessed by the title of this post the DVD is going to concentrate on the French Defence.

Originally I wanted to get all the relevant material onto one DVD but after a couple of days of full filming we realised that this would not be possible.

The edited version of the DVD is going to be roughly 10 hours long. Technically it might be possible to get everything onto one DVD but the quality of the picture would be of such a low standard that I would not be happy selling the product.

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Bad news guys and girls… our 9:45pm flight to London Gatwick was cancelled yesterday due to an ash cloud which had descended over Lyon. After much deliberation, we’ve decided to stay at the airport in the hope that flights will be running to schedule on Monday.

The kind and thoughtful people at Easyjet issued us with a food and drink voucher for 4€50 which couldn’t be used in our terminal as everything had shut for the evening… cheers guys!

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Myself and Aly caught a flight over to Lyon on Saturday for a chess league game. There were rumours going around that the notorious Icelandic volcano might be blowing off steam again but our flight left without any delays.

We’ve just finished with 2 quick wins in 19 moves, look below to see mine (Aly’s a bit shy!). Then to our dismay we have found out that all flights this morning from Lyon have been cancelled!

Well that has left us in a dilemma, do we hang around in the hope that our flight will be going? (It is at 9.45pm) Or do we catch a train to Paris spend the night playing Poker in the Aviation club in the hope that we can make enough money to either get a train or ferry home?

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Is it insulting to your opponent if you decide to play a wacky opening??

This is a dilemma that I faced the other day. It was the last round of the 4ncl and my team, The Dutes of Kent, had sadly get demoted to division 2 on the previous day.

No-one had anything to play for and I wanted to get out of theory as quickly as possible. It did not matter who I was paired against. I just felt like playing an unusual opening, in order to enter un-chartered waters as quickly as possible.

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Is it insulting to your opponent if you decide to play a wacky opening??

This is a dilemma that I faced the other day. It was the last round of the 4ncl and my team, The Dutes of Kent, had sadly get demoted to division 2 on the previous day.

No-one had anything to play for and I wanted to get out of theory as quickly as possible. It did not matter who I was paired against. I just felt like playing an unusual opening, in order to enter un-chartered waters as quickly as possible.

Read the rest of this entry »

I am sure that the majority of people in Britain have been following the election with eager eyes.

What an exciting time. With the state of affairs of this country being decided by a rather abstract bunch of power hungry authoritarian characters, who can fail but to get excited?

The faces of these politicians seem real but they also seem to live in a world far distant to mine. (Yes, I am just a chess professional!)

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Since the last video I have managed to find out the name of the gambit in question, ‘The Geller Gambit’ and in this post I will look at another game that I played in this variation.

I am not 100% sure that the gambit is sound but most of the openings I play contain a fair amount of risk. I suppose that my personality tends to prefer these types of openings. Death or glory can be a fun motto.

The Geller Gambit certainly leads to some messy unclear positions but I feel that I might need to add some more weapons to my repertoire, in order to become a less predictable player.

This is one of the reasons why in the last round of the 4ncl (British Chess League) I played 1 g4 d5 2 g5!? but I doubt whether that opening will scare too many players either. Anyway more on that later.

Read the rest of this entry »

Since the last video I have managed to find out the name of the gambit in question, ‘The Geller Gambit’ and in this post I will look at another game that I played in this variation.

I am not 100% sure that the gambit is sound but most of the openings I play contain a fair amount of risk. I suppose that my personality tends to prefer these types of openings. Death or glory can be a fun motto.

The Geller Gambit certainly leads to some messy unclear positions but I feel that I might need to add some more weapons to my repertoire, in order to become a less predictable player.

This is one of the reasons why in the last round of the 4ncl (British Chess League) I played 1 g4 d5 2 g5!? but I doubt whether that opening will scare too many players either. Anyway more on that later.

Read the rest of this entry »