Uxbridge All-Play-All

Hello everyone! It's been a busy few days for me. I finished playing at Uxbridge on the 17th February, then played at the 4NCL over the weekend and now I'm in Reykjavik, Iceland - ready to start another tournament tomorrow! Here I am playing my second game at Uxbridge, photo taken by the organiser Sean Hewitt.

I had a disastrous start to my tournament in Uxbridge - I lost 4 games in the row! I was feeling very down at that point. However I managed to follow that up with 3 wins, one of which was against the overall tournament winner Mark Josse. I outplayed him in the endgame and was the only one who beat him. Disappointingly, I lost the final game against the chess player who got the second place even though I was two pawns up at some point. You can see the final tournament table here. The strange thing is I felt as if I'm definitely playing better chess than a few months ago but I seemed to be smudging my finishes in most games that I lost. Another interesting thing is I seem to be playing more aggressive chess which is quite entertaining and complicated at the same time. Sadly I still keep losing rating points - another 10 this time. Of course, there's not much point worrying about rating right now - I just need to improve my chess.

I did much better at the 4NCL. I got 1.5 out of 2 including a win against 2115 FIDE in the nice style. Time limit at the 4NCL was much longer than at Uxbridge, so I guess I had enough time to find a way to covert my advantage. Here I am at the start of the game that I won at the 4NCL. I look quite mean - I was indeed playing for a win!

Unfortunately, my team Betsson.com lost that match 3.5:4.5. It was a very important match for us. Even though we won the second match of the weekend it will now be very difficult for us to get into the top half of the draw. In the next round (held towards the end of March) we have to win 5.5:2.5 against the strong team Wood Green Hilsmark Kingfisher 2 in order to get into the top half. It may turn out to be a very interesting encounter because if we win then our opponents will not get into the top half, so everything will be at stake for both teams.

The weather in Reykjavik is not much colder than in London, but the wind makes it 10 times worse! Even though it was sunny today, I was freezing only after a few minutes outside and had to hop into several shops and coffee bars to keep myself warm while walking around. Here is an unusual church in the centre of Reykjavik.

But the birds don't seem to mind the wind and the mostly frozen lake. This is near the playing venue - City Hall.

I still haven't got the draw for the first round but you'll be able to find it here together with the tournament results. I'll give you my update in a few days.