January 4 NCL

I played at the 4NCL last weekend, for the first time this season. I had to miss the first weekend (two rounds) of the season due to the European Team Championship in November. I think I've already mentioned that my team has been re-named from Betsson.com to Blackthorne Russia because our new sponsor is the company called Blackthorne which specialises in exports to Russia. We even got our sponsor's t-shirts to wear, but I found out that my "small" size t-shirt was way too big for me, probably 4 sizes too big. In fact, it fitted my partner IM Simon Ansell rather perfectly, and he normally wears "medium" size t-shirts. I decided to stick with wearing my own clothes. Although it did cross my mind that I could possibly get away with wearing the t-shirt as a short dress, since it wasn't just big in the shoulders but also quite long!

So, what about the results? Simon and I did rather well, each gaining 1.5 out of 2. But our team narrowly lost both matches 3.5-4.5. This means that it would be near impossible for us to get into the championship pool after 7 rounds and instead we'd have to fight off relegation in the relegation pool. To get into the championship pool we'd probably have to win 3 remaining matches and in one of them we'd have to beat Wood Green who are currently top of our pool and very strong. In the 4th round they fielded GMs on all boards beating their main rival Guildford 1 in the process by 5.5-2.5. Here I am playing against John Sugden rated 2180 last Sunday.

Although I had a nice win on the Sunday, it was more of a technical win with a pawn up rather than something exciting to show. Instead, I'd like to show you how I managed to miss a clear win in my recent London League game when I was playing for Hackney 1 against Drunken Knights 2. I got into time trouble again! This was partly because I was trying to remember the theory in the gambit that my opponent played and partly because I was out of practice. In any case, it seems that this game served me well as I handled my clock rather well over the 4NCL weekend. White to move.

M. Yurenok (ECF 179) - G. Leyton (ECF 167)

London League, 9th January 2012

My opponent has just moved his queen from e7 to e8 which was a mistake. He should have played Bd6 instead. At this point I still had to make 9 moves to the time control while I had maybe 1 or 2 minutes left without increment. I was in desperate time trouble but managed to find the right move:

21. Rxc7! my idea was that if black plays 21...Kxc7 then I win some material with 22. Qc2+ Kb8 23. Bd6+ Ka8 24. Bxe5 +- and there are still more threats as f6 knight is pinned and hanging. It seems I didn't notice that I can actually deliver a typical checkmate in this variation with 24. Nb6+ axb6 25. Qa4# I guess this is not too important if I'm clearly winning anyway. And in any case, black didn't have to retreat with the king on the 22nd move, but could give up the same piece differently with 22...Nc6 avoiding the checkmate. So, my opponent played:

21...Bxb5 I expected this move as I mistakenly thought it was the best reply, so I pre-planned my answer worrying that my flag might fall before I can make it to 30 moves. I immediately replied with:

22. Rxb7? =/+ this gives up all of my advantage. When you're short of time, simple and obvious moves are missed. I didn't think of moving my rook the other way, now that the bishop has left d7. The correct move was 22. Re7 At this point my computer announces +8 winning advantage for white. Oh dear :( Black can respond with 22...Bxa4 attacking my queen in return, and here the simplest for white is just 23. Rxe8 Bxd1 24. Rxh8 Rxh8 25. Rxd1 emerging with a clear piece up. My game eventually ended in a draw and my team lost 5-7. Strange that we beat the stronger Drunken Knights 1 team with 9-3 score earlier in the season!

For the past couple of days I've been following some of the Tata Steel Chess live tournament games on their website and I discovered something. They have Houdini engine giving evaluation of every move made, and it seems that even grandmasters sometimes go passed +8 advantage! Ok, not super-grandmasters but still strong players. For example, look at the GM Brandenburg - IM Grover game from round 3 in group C, which ended in a draw and where each opponent had +8 advantage at some point according to Houdini! I don't feel so bad after all :) There are lots of serious mistakes in other games too which can be fun to watch, but then anyone is clever with the help of a computer. I actually prefer listening to commentary by strong players who don't use computers, like they had in the World Cup with GM Shipov for example.

More From My Games

I played a few games in the past couple of weeks. First of all, I played at the first weekend of the 4NCL 2010-11 season (British team league). My team Betsson.com did very well as we won both matches. If we continue like this we should end up in the top half of the 1st division after 7 rounds. For the past two years we were the winners of the bottom half and felt we could do better. I did ok by drawing both of my games against similarly rated opponents, but I could have posed more problems for both of my opponents. Unfortunately, getting into the time trouble didn't help - I need to sort that out!

I also played a game for Hackney 1 team in the top division of the London League. We were outrated by our opponents Wood Green on every board (apart from the bottom borad 12 which was unrated), but somehow we managed to draw the match! Unfortunately, I lost my game against strong IM Mohamed Tissir on board 5 but not without missing some winning chances on my side. The time limit is fairly fast in the London League - 1hr 15mins for 30 moves followed by 15mins to finish and that again proved to be the deciding factor for me. With maybe a minute left on the clock I managed to miss an easy draw and a less easy win in this position - how annoying! Think about how you would have played in this position, black to move. I will provide the solution in the next post.

M. Tissir (226 ECF/2474 FIDE) - M. Yurenok (178 ECF/2071 FIDE)

Wood Green - Hackney 1

London League, 10th November 2010

There' been a lot of exciting chess going on recently with the Tal Memorial and the blitz afterwards. I'm glad that Sergey Karjakin got a share of the first prize with Levon Aronian in the main tournament. Aronian did very well to win the blitz tournament as well. I wish I had more time to watch the games - but can't do that during working hours! Currently I'm following the Russian Women's Superfinal Championship. Nadezhda Kosintseva is leading with 3.5 out of 4.

Now it's time to reveal the solution for the position published in the last post. Some of you might have noticed that the correct solution was already suggested in the comments to the last post. So here is the position again:

N. Relea (2193) - M. Yurenok (2071)

Cap d'Agde, 27th October 2010

I should have played:

52...Kh5! - it's not easy to let go of conventions and see that attacking with the king wins here even with queens and rooks present! White has two options:

53. Rg5+ Qxg5! 54. hxg5+ Rh4 55. Qxh4 Kxh4 and this pawn endgame is winning for black because white can't do anything with his extra pawn on the queenside. For example: 56. Kg2 Kxg5 57. Kg3 Kh5 58. Kh3 g5 59. Kg3 g4 60. Kg2 Kh4 61. b4 g3 62. Kg1 Kh3 63. Kh1 g2+ 64. Kg1 Kg3 65. c3 dxc3 and black checkmates in two.

or

53. Rxf4 Qxf4+ 54. Kg2 (or 54. Kg1 Qg4+) Qxh4 55. Qf3+ Qg4+ and white can't avoid exchange of queens leading again to the won pawn ending for black.

I also promised to show you an interesting double rook endgame  from another one of my games in Cap d'Agde. I know a lot of people think that endgames are boring, but double rook endgames are notoriously complex. This example is no exception, besides I think it's quite entertaining as both sides are trying to queen their pawns. Have a look at this position, black to move:

S. Pham Guerrero (2199) - M. Yurenok (2071)

Cap d'Agde, 29th October 2010

Earlier on white's endgame was quite a bit better, but he was probably trying to win too hard and allowed me to have substantial counterplay on the kingside. Here I played 42...Re3! White thought for quite a while as I guess he realised that he was now in trouble and he responded with the only move 43. b6 But even after this move black is winning. Try to find black's next move and the supporting variations leading to a win. I suggest you analyse it with the board as there are several rather complicated variations, but if you can calculate it all in your head - well done! I wasn't able to find the correct continuation and only drew the game. I hope you'll enjoy analysing this and I'll tell you what should have happened in my game in my next post.

Olympiad and more

Hello everyone!

I've finally played my first serious game of chess since July. It was a nice win in the London League, albeit against a weaker opponent. It's good to get some practice in though! The game started off as a quiet variation of the Slav but after 24 moves I got this completely winning position. Can you find the moves to finish this game off before looking below for my answer? Black to move:

P. Stokes (163 ECF) - Maria Yurenok (178 ECF)

London League, 30th September 2010

There are more than one ways to finish this game, but I chose:

24...Rf6! With not much time left on the clock I decided on a simple plan - put the rook on g6 creating various threats. And there's not much white can do about that! Of course, b7 pawn is irrelevant and no point taking the rook on f2 as it's not going anywhere.

25. Qe1 Rg6 26. c5 - it's hard to suggest anything for white as he's stuck for moves and has no reasonable defense against my plan.

26...Bh4 - now I'm threatening to win the queen with 27...Rxg2 28. Rxg2 Qh1+ 29. Rg1 Qh3+ 30. Rg2 Bxe1 +- With the clock ticking down white made the final mistake:

27. fxe4?? Qxg2# Don't you think it's a pretty checkmate?

I have two more London League games in the coming week. And I can't wait to play in my next serious tournament in France (Cap D'Agde) at the end of October. I haven't been training much but I do find time to improve my tactics by solving tactical puzzles on my iPhone on the way to work. I have more than 1000 of them to solve, so it will keep me busy for a while J

The past couple of weeks have been very exciting as I've been following games and results of the Chess Olympiad. Ukrainian men won the Open section and Russian women won the Women's section with a round to spare! I'm glad that the Russian women outperformed their Chinese rivals this time. English men didn't do as well as their team ranking, but English women finished 21st despite being seeded 39th - so a good result! Here is a photo from Meri Grigoryan of the English women's team in action.

From left to right: WFM Sarah Hegarty, Kanwal Bhatia, WFM Meri Grigoryan, IM Jovanka Houska. The next international  team competition which will be represented by England is the European Team Championship in the Autumn of next year. Lets see if I can show some good results to get into the team next year.

A bit about Grunfeld

Time flies when you're having fun! I've had some nice things happen in my life in the past few weeks but not anything to do with chess. That somewhat slack attitude might come back and bite me as I'm off to Bangkok tomorrow to play in Thailand Open and feeling like I could have done more to prepare. But I'm not sorry about it - it's important to be happy in life and not just in chess. Thailand might prove to be more "exciting" than I expected. There is currently some political unrest going on with demonstrations that could potentially bring down the current government. To be fair, I've already seen Bangkok and don't need to get out of the hotel if the troubles continue. My real holiday will be for a few days after the tournament on the Thai island of Koh Chang - away from any revolutions. It will be interesting to see if any chess players decide to pull out of the tournament because of unrest but for now the top seed promises to be England's own GM Nigel Short.

Ok, I haven't been ignoring chess completely. I've had a look at some games of the former world champion GM Vasily Smyslov who sadly passed away a few days ago. His games seem so smooth - almost effortless. He was well known for trying to search for the ultimate "truth" and harmony when playing chess. I've also continued my training sessions with GM Chris Ward and I've played a few serious games of chess in the London League and the 4NCL. The last game in the London League was completely disastrous for me as I managed to lose a completely winning position. Not only my position was better, I was also and exchange up!   Perhaps a large dinner before the game didn't help very much as I found it difficult to think and make any decisions when I was confronted with some options. I did much better at the 4NCL gaining 1.5 out of 2 against stronger opposition.

I'd like to show you the game I won from that 4NCL weekend. It was my first serious game against Grunfeld Defence and I was well prepared. Quite fittingly, I chose to play the Russian System against Grunfeld (D36), maybe because I quite liked GM Magnus Carlsen's recent wins in that opening against GM Svidler and GM Dominguez. You can replay the game via an applet below but here is the game with my commentary.


M. Yurenok (1953) - S. Hegarty (2067)
27 March 2010, 4NCL

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. Qb3 dxc4 6. Qxc4 O-O 7. e4 c6 - I expected this. 7...c6 is described by GM Rowson in his Grunfeld book as the most passive option for black. After looking through some GM games on the database I can't say I disagree as I liked white every time. No wonder GMs Svidler and Dominguez choose to play 7...a6.

8. Qb3 Qb6 9. Bc4 Qxb3 10. Bxb3 - my preparation ended here. It's quite easy to find decent moves for white in this position while black has to do all the thinking to create counter-play. I was 40 minutes ahead on the clock at some point and finished 20 minutes ahead while my opponent got into time-trouble. It's not easy to develop black's pieces.

10... Bg4 11. Bg5 - it was worth considering 11.Ne5 because if the black bishop doesn't move I'd still get the bishop pair without doubling of my f pawns and if 11...Be6 12.Bxe6 I'd ruin black's pawn structure. However, the move that I made is also fine and threatens 11...e5 winning e7 pawn.

11... h6 12. Bf4 - Rybka doesn't quite understand that move and really wants to put the bishop on e3 but I believe the bishop on f4 is more active

12... Bxf3 - expected natural follow-up to 10... Bg4 but 10... Nbd7 was also possible

13. gxf3 Nh5?! - it's not clear what this achieves as 14... e5 isn't possible and d4 pawn is easily defended

14. Be3 Kh7 15. f4 - black pieces are still cramped and white has a nice centre

15... Nf6 16. h3 - not really necessary as losing e3 bishop for black's knight is not really a threat, so 16.e5 is a good alternative

16. h3 e6 17. O-O - another option is to castle queenside and play for an attack with f5 and Rhg1

17... Nbd7 18. e5 - I thought for a while about this move as it gives up d5 square but decided that my knight on d6 would be better than black's knight on d5. However, it was probably better to develop rooks first before fixing the pawns in the centre.

18... Nd5 19. Ne4 f6?! - this doesn't stop me from doing what I want. The better plan was to put pieces like that: Rab8, N7b6 via c8 to e7 and then to f5.

20. Nd6 fxe5 21. fxe5 Rab8 22. Bxd5 - I had to think a little here as it appears that I'm giving up my "good" bishop but I'm giving it up for the only black's active piece and neither of black's re-captures seems attractive

22... cxd5? - this was the worst of the two evils as now I can't see how black can avoid losing some material. After 22...exd5 I was planning 23. e6 Nf6 24. e7 Rg8 but I couldn't see what to do next and Rybka confirms that this doesn't achieve much for white. Instead, 23. f4 would have been a simple way to maintain an advantage. f5 may become a threat at some point, Rac1, b4 and b5 with minority attack is another threat.

23. Rac1 Rfd8 - it's hard to suggest anything better for black anyway, the rest is straightforward

24. Rc7 Nf8 25. Rfc1 a6 26. Rxb7 Rxb7 27. Nxb7 Rd7 28. Nc5 Ra7 29. Rc3 Kg8 30. Ra3 Kf7 31. Rxa6 Rc7 32. b4 Re7 33. Rd6 1:0

Challenge at the Top

My birthday is over and now it's only a nice but distant memory! I wouldn't mind a birthday once a month :) However, there is still something to look forward to - my present from relatives in the U.S.A. is still on its way. I hope it didn't get lost as it's been travelling for a long time now! I'm pretty sensible these days when I go out, but this time I must have had one too many cocktails and lost my camera. But before I even realised what I'd done, I had a call from the restaurant to tell me I left my camera - that's amazing customer service I think! Photos were worth retrieving as now I can prove that I wasn't the only one drinking cocktails :) Here I am with my good friend WFM Meri Grigoryan.

Meri told me that she recently met GM Karpov and had a picture taken with him. Apparently he's a nice and friendly man. Unfortunately, I've never met him. Why am I saying all this? Well, you must have heard by now that Karpov is running for the FIDE President. It would certainly be interesting if FIDE had a change at the top. When Karpov played his World Championship match against Kasparov back in the 80-s, lots of  people in Chelyabinsk supported Karpov because he grew up very near Chelyabinsk and was considered the local talent. I was still in Russia when the match was played and I was also supporting Karpov. Although I really admire his chess I have no idea what he would be like in the management position of FIDE President, but I do like change and I'm looking forward to the FIDE President elections!

Not much is happening in my chess world. I played a London League game for the second Hackney team on Monday and had a straightforward win in the Closed Sicilian with black. Quite amazingly for me I also finished with half an hour to spare compared to my opponent. Perhaps I should continue this trend as it's great to have lots of time in the middlegame! My team also won. I've also been following some of the Amber and European Championship games on the internet. And I have been playing quite a bit of blitz and getting a bit better at it, but perhaps I should concentrate on more useful chess learning activities!

Barnet Congress

I enjoyed playing in Barnet Congress last weekend. I got 2 out of 4, but performed above my rating. The only game that I lost was to Jovica Radovanovic who is graded quite a lot above me at 218 ECF (his FIDE is 2337). The game was very entertaining. Playing Sicilian as black, I grabbed a pawn for white's compensation. Later on I had to give up an exchange but white opted to give it back straight away. Following that I decided to give up two pawns to transpose into what looked like a drawn endgame. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to draw 2 vs. 3 pawns on the kingside and rook each. I was ground down and actually lost on time at the end. As I found out it's not at all easy to defend this ending under the time pressure even though many people would think of that position as an easy draw! That's certainly a game that needs thorough analysis.

The tournament was won by three people, among them my Hackney team captain - Bob Eames, so congratulations to him. I also had a nice win in 21 moves. Have a look at the diagram, I'm a pawn up but still a fair bit away from winning. However, black helped me to secure an immediate win by moving Re8-f8. What's wrong with that move and how white should reply?

M. Yurenok (173) - M. Peat (179)

30th January 2010, Barnet

On Monday I played a game for the first Hackney team in the London League. I drew against my 4NCL team captain Steve Ledger who was playing for Streatham! But it wasn't a "grandmaster" draw, we were fighting until the end. I played with white against Benko Gambit for the first time and got a good position but didn't manage to make anything out of it. In time trouble I lost a pawn but Steve made an inaccurate move that allowed me to transpose into a drawn R+P endgame. My team, however, lost as we were outrated.

And here is the solution to the last post's puzzle (G. More - M. Yurenok). Thanks to those who sent the answers, now you can compare your thoughts with mine during the game. The game continued: 

23... Bxg3 24. hxg Bxe4! Now white can't take 25.Bxe4 because of deadly 25...Ne2+ check winning the queen, and taking 25. Bxd4 instead doesn't help either as after black's 25...exd4 attacks the queen leaving me a piece up as bishop on g3 will escape re-capture.

After 24...Bxe4 white is not just a pawn down, but her position is totally disintegrating due to too many threats. Rook on b1 is under attack but has nowhere to go. If it moves from b file - pawn on b3 falls to 25...Rxb3. If b1 rook stays on b file, e.g. 25.Rb2 then black wins a rook by 25...Nxf3+ and 26...Rxd1. On top of all of these there are still threats of black taking on f3 with the bishop and winning the queen by Ne2+. The game continued:

25. Rbc1 Rxb3 26.Qxb3 (26. Bxd4 Rxc3 27. Bxc3 was a bit better but still losing) Nxb3 27. Rxd8+ Qxd8 28. Rd1 Nd4 29. Kf2 Bxf3 30. gxf3 Qf6 31. f4 exf4 32. gxf4 e5 33. Rb1 h6 34. Rb8+ Kh7 35. Kg3 exf4+ 0:1

Puzzle and News

Well, I'm now booked to play in two Open tournaments: Reykjavik in Iceland towards the end of February and Bangkok in Thailand in April! It's great as I've never been to Iceland. And even though I've been to Thailand 3 years ago, I am also really looking forward to it because it will be a lot hotter than wintry England! IM Simon Ansell is also going and we will stay for a few extra days in each country to look around and explore.

I played a game on Tuesday for the 2nd Hackney team in the London League. I was actually playing on the first board, which is quite unusual for a woman! But I lost... I thought I was doing quite well, I played as white against the Queen's Indian for the first time. I seemed to get a good position out of the opening despite not knowing almost any theory on this opening. However, I blundered a pawn in the time-trouble and it was the end of it, especially since my opponent was playing quite fast and had a lot more time. He didn't have ECF rating, but his FIDE converted to ECF was about 193, so quite strong for me. The match is still on-going as one game was adjourned (yes! adjournments still happen in England!!!) with an extra pawn in the rook ending on my team's side. If we win that game we would draw the match, so it's a very important game. However, rook endings are notoriously hard to win.

This weekend I'm playing in a local London tournament in Barnet, not FIDE-rated. I thought I might as well get some practice since Barnet is fairly close to where I live. I will play two games on each of two days, so it's quite intense but good practice for clock handling before more serious Uxbridge all-play-all tournament in mid-February. And on Monday I'll be playing in the London League again, this time for the 1st Hackney team.

Here is a fairly simple puzzle for you from one of my games in Hastings, black to move. Can you find the winning continuation? Let me know if you can and I will post the solution in a couple of weeks.

G. Moore (1902) - M. Yurenok (1968)

3 January 2010, Hastings

Finally, I've had a training session with my new GM coach Chris Ward on Tuesday and it went well. I will be an expert in 1.d4 openings in no time, so watch out!!

Home and Away

In the past week I've played two league games. I've won both times and I think I can get used to this :) My Surrey League opponent was significantly lower rated than me at 122 ECF, so the game wasn't particularly challenging. However, I decided to have a bit of fun with my black pieces and played an unusual variation I've never played against the Torre Attack. So that kept me entertained as I wasn't quite sure what I was doing. That line certainly surprised my opponent enough to give me a lasting advantage out of the opening. My Sandhurst team also won easily 4.5 : 0.5.

And in the London League I won against 206 ECF - nice achievement for me! I was playing QGD for white quite well and had a slight advantage throughout the game. However, I messed things up in the endgame when I started getting short of time (quick play finish has some downsides!) Nevertheless, my opponent was the last one to make a mistake as he missed a checkmate in one instead of winning rook and pawn endgame. Well, we both had about 1min left on the clock (without increment) and luck was on my side :) My Hackney team did very well and lost only 7:5 against much stronger opposition. Unfortunately our last board defaulted, otherwise maybe we could have drawn...

I've been watching the World Cup every day as I seem to be addicted to it, but I think it's probably good chess training for me anyway. There are very interesting interviews on the World Cup website as well, and only a fraction of them end up on the Chessbase website, so it's definitely worth checking out. They've just published an interesting interview with GM Tkachiev. Unfortunately, it's only in Russian at the moment, so watch out for it to be translated - probably in the next few hours, as the World Cup website seems quite efficient. Also a few days ago GM Ivanchuk got knocked out of the Word Cup and he gave a very interesting interview threatening to quit chess. Thankfully, he seems to be feeling better now as he said he'd be back. Chess can be just as dramatic as any other sport!

I was very impressed with Judit when she won her second slow play game on demand against GM Gelfand in a very nice attacking style. Unfortunately, she lost in the rapidplay but not without creating significant complications out of nothing in the last game, in what looked like a totally hopeless position for her. That woman has amazing fighting abilities and imagination! Anyway, it's very interesting to see how grandmasters realise their advantage or make mistakes and miss their opportunities. I try to guess their moves and on occasion I find better ones than the players, so they are human after all :)

The London League

Yesterday I won my game for Hackney in the London League against an opponent of the same ECF rating as me. It was especially nice to win because I was on the white side of Benoni for the first time in my life, without any preparation. Basically, I'm fed up with boredom playing the Torre Attack or other similar non-main lines with white. I've only been playing those because I haven't been spending any time on learning chess in the past 6 or 7 years. Now that I'm being serious about chess - it's time to play more ambitious main lines! So, my coach Simon Ansell told me just to play d4 and c4 and not to worry about not knowing the theory. It turned out to be a very good advice as I managed to figure out the first 12 moves of theory anyway at which point my opponent deviated from the theory by making an inferior move and made a losing mistake the move after. Maybe my memory isn't as bad as I think if I remember how to play Benoni without ever learning it. Unfortunately, my team lost but I'm sure we'll win next time.

What really puzzles me about the London League is why it is still possible to adjourn the games. Chess has speeded up and we need to keep up with the current trends to allow our players to get used to the faster time limits to be more competitive in the wider world. Probably only in England we still use adjournments while the rest of the world has got rid of that rule a long time ago. Perhaps I should start a campaign to abolish adjournments in the London and other English Leagues! While I'm on the subject of time limits for a game, I also think that 4NCL games should be speeded up to at least 2hr for 40 moves + 1 hour to the end, abolishing additional 30 minutes. And if 4NCL could obtain enough electronic chess clocks, then we should move to the incremented time limit like most international tournaments.

Bob did bring me whole 4 books about the "mystery" opening that I'm going to learn. Simon's advice is the same - just play it and learn from books afterwards... That may not be very scary with white, but with black there is more chance of getting into serious trouble! So, perhaps I'd test it out on the ICC and in the rapid plays before using in a long play game.

I'm currently making plans for my future tournaments. My next tournament would be the women's invitational alongside the London Chess Classic in December, and at the end of December I'm off to Hastings. Beyond that I'm struggling to make my choice as I have several options. I could go either to Gibraltar or to Moscow. There is the Moscow Open starting at the end of January which is directly followed by the Aeroflot Open. It's a rather good deal because I'd have two tournaments and would fly to Moscow only once. But I haven't experienced Russian winter for 16 years and might not enjoy the cold weather... The other dilemma is whether I shouldn't be playing so much chess and should be training instead. I think I'll see how my November training is coming along before deciding what to do about February.