Category: Sue
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Happy Easter! A long and much overdue update
When we started Gawain’s website we had such bold ideas but life got busy and it was something that we did not prioritize as it’s time-consuming and doesn’t pay at all! But I know that we have some readers and fans who enjoy the content so that was always nice to know. I now see…
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Weekend in Dundee and Gawain featured in Sueddeutsche Zeitung
After arriving back from St Petersburg, exhausted – I had to go back to work for a few days before we had another weekend away, this time visiting Gawain’s parents in Dundee, Scotland. Gawain’s mum, Tanya, is doing a degree in Environmental Law so they have moved to Dundee from Enniskillen for a year. It…
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Faroes Open -Part 2
There were many Side Events for this tournament. I guess when you go to a tournament in the Faroe Islands or Iceland you want to see something other than the hotel and playing venue. There were visits to the various local tourist spots, a chance to play and watch the football and the blitz tournament!…
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British Citizen
On Tuesday I had my Citizenship Ceremony at Sheffield Town Hall. This has been a long process and there was a period where I thought we would have to leave the UK but thanks to having great friends and family we were able to bear the financial and emotional burden of having an application denied.…
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Faroes Open 2018 – Part 1
The tournament is now finished and there’s always that weird feeling once you’ve been in a place for a few weeks with the same people and you then leave it all behind until the next time. We had a great time but as usual I’m very glad to be home and that I we have a…
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Future Tournament Plans
Since I last wrote, I had my 27th Birthday. It was a quiet affair. At first I was planning on going away – maybe a weekend break but actually with the “Beast from the East” and “Storm Emma” it would’ve been a nightmare to be travelling anywhere and we actually remained at home inside for…
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The 25th Bunratty Masters
So first I have to post this photo I took while in St. Moritz. Since I was away from work I was unable to play in the Celebration In Memoriam Beer and Blitz which was eventually won by GM Matthew Sadler – it seemed like such a fun event and the first of a few…
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Tata Steel Masters – Round 6-8
We always knew that rounds 6-8 would be difficult. Having Black against Vladimir and Magnus and White against Peter meant getting any points would be nice. Gawain managed to get 1 out of 3 which is a good score from that field and is now on 3.5/8. In Round 6, Ga faced Vladimir Kramnik and was…
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Tata Steel Masters, Rounds 1-5
Wijk aan Zee is a small village which hosts the first major “super tournament” of the year. It’s normally held in January and overlaps briefly with the strong open, The Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival. Closed tournaments for 2650 Grandmasters are hard to come by, so when you get such an opportunity you really want to grab it. At…
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Tata Steel Opening Ceremony
There’s something nice about being near the sea, though it would be even better if it was summer time! Oh well. This tournament is seeped in history and for many reasons players keep coming back to play in Wijk. It’s quite a special place with a great chess atmosphere. The playing hall “De Moriaan” transforms…
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Hello 2018! 🙂
What an incredibly busy year it has been for us. I’ve played 8 tournaments last year as well as playing in the 4NCL (UK League) and Landesliga (German League 5th Division). Gawain has been of course even busier than me also playing in the World Cup and the European Individual. We are now in Wijk…
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European Teams Chess Championship
We’ve been back home now for just over a week since coming back from Crete and weather wise it’s been a shock to the system! Though Crete was not as warm as I had hoped it to be, it was still mostly t-shirts and shorts kind of weather so once we got back and I…
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English Women’s Championship.
Last weekend I headed to West Bromwich to play in the English Women’s Championship. I was 2nd seed in a tournament with 11 players. Last year I think there was only 6 players so the number of entrants had definitely improved. It was strange having a swiss with so few players as 4 players ended up getting…
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European Teams Chess Championship, Crete.
I’m so glad to announce that both Gawain and I have been selected to play for England at the European Teams later this year. The tournament will be held late October until early November. You can check out the official regulations here. It’s normally a very strong team event because, unlike the Chess Olympiad where you…
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Spanish Chess League
Gawain will be playing an early morning last round tomorrow in the Spanish League, I think it starts 9.30am (!!) local time. His team Sestao Bizkaialdehas won the title with one round to spare. You can watch the games live on chess24. Gawain headed to Linares last Sunday and we went via London where we…
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4th Purtichju Open
I’m sorry I haven’t written in so long. It’s been a busy time for us and then when we got to Corsica we didn’t really have good internet. I did try to write an update but the connection was so terrible and I wasn’t able to even go to the new post page. We left…