“What was I doing here? What was the meaning of this trip? Was I just roaming around in a drug frenzy of some kind? Or had I really come out here to Las Vegas to work on a story? Who are these people, these faces? Where do they come from? They look like caricatures of used car dealers from Dallas, and sweet Jesus, there were a hell of a lot of them at 4:30 on a Sunday morning, still humping the American dream, that vision of the big winner somehow emerging from the last minute pre-dawn chaos of a stale Vegas casino.” *

So recently I returned from a trip to the USA where, amongst other things, I:

• failed to cash in the World Series of Poker Main Event
• saw Snoop Dogg perform only yards away at a private party
• nearly angrily took out a GM with the Killer Dutch in a crucial last round game of chess

Rock and Roll.

*So says Raoul Duke in Hunter S. Thompson’s classic novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

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What to do in the last London League match of the season, your 8th Black out of 9 games (thanks Captain Bob) before heading to Thailand to avoid the red-shirts and play the Bangkok Open? Win in 25 moves with the Killer Dutch of course!

I was going to annotate my game against Oleg Romanishin from Iceland, but I don’t have much time before going away. This one’s quicker and easier and a better advert for the DVD!

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First of all, apologies “Bishops: Part 2” (Part 1 is here) never materialised, I had other priorities.

I’m currently in Reykjavik playing in the annual Open tournament. I’ve been meaning to play here for a while, Simon W likes the place and has previously reported favourably. This year I finally managed to make it!

The venue, Reykjavik City Hall

It’s obvious what Simon likes about Reykjavik – the pace of life is very relaxed (unlike the nightlife, which is legendary!) and the scenery is beautiful – even in the heavy snow. I’m looking forward to a few free days after the chess to explore. I’d certainly recommend the tournament to anyone – Iceland isn’t nearly as expensive as it once was since the well-documented financial crisis.

After six rounds, the chess isn’t going particularly well to be honest – I’ve hung two pieces in perfectly good positions, and yesterday was completely winning against American GM Yuri Shulman (2624) but managed to spoil a complicated position and even lost.

There has been one bright spot though. Having recently proof-read (proof-watched?) all 7 hours of a certain ‘Killer Dutch’ DVD and having nothing to lose, I thought it was time to give the opening a punt!

BUY THIS DVD and you too can win games like this:

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I’ve just returned from the extremely strong Greek Open Championship in Kavala, where in between lying on the beach, eating olives and drinking beer I played some chess: 5.5/9 for a pretty mediocre performance in terms of rating points.

I made 0.5/4 with Black, spoiling some perfectly acceptable positions with ridiculous moves. But with White I scored 5/5 and played some nice games, in all of which BISHOPS were instrumental!

A Greek Orthodox Bishop.

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Ginger GM Williams has kindly allowed the webmaster to publish two nice finishes from the 4NCL this weekend. Simon did originally ask me to write a poker column detailing my quest for Supernova Elite, but every poker blog I’ve ever read (with a notable exception) is mind-numbingly boring and chess is a much better game than poker anyway. So for now, you’re getting chess.

I expect Simon will be reporting on the 4NCL in due course, where his team Jutes of Kent won promotion to Division 1. Further exciting content we have lined up for the site includes a regular question and answer column with ‘Ginger IM’ Adam Hunt!

On to the chess.

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