Monthly Archives: August 2011

Blast from the Past: University Team Games

When I started attending Durham University in 1992, I joined the Chess Club straight away, and played for the First Team for all of my three years there. The university entered a couple of teams in the local league, where … Continue reading

Posted in Blast from the Past, Games, Opening Analysis, The Gruenfeld Defence, The King's Indian Defence, The Queen's Indian Defence, The Sicilian Defence, The Torre Attack | Leave a comment

Blast from the Past: Islington Tournaments

The first non-junior individual tournament I entered was the annual event at Islington in 1990. I returned there a couple more times, in 1992 and 1995. Playing in such adult events was an important part of my development as a … Continue reading

Posted in Blast from the Past, Games, Opening Analysis, The Gruenfeld Defence, The King's Indian Defence, The Pirc Defence, The Semi-Slav Defence, The Sicilian Defence | Leave a comment

Blast from the Past: Junior Tournaments

As mentioned in my previous post (and the first in this series) most of the opponents I faced when playing for my school were weak players. As a result, I didn’t learn a great deal from these games, as not … Continue reading

Posted in Blast from the Past, Games, Opening Analysis, The Blumenfeld Gambit, The Gruenfeld Defence, The Modern Defence, The Queen’s Gambit Declined, The Sicilian Defence | Leave a comment

Blast from the Past: School Team Games

This post is the first in a series where I look back over some of the 1000+ games I have played in competitive tournaments and matches over the years. I am going to start with a look at some of … Continue reading

Posted in Blast from the Past, Games, Opening Analysis, The King's Indian Defence, The Queen’s Gambit Declined | 2 Comments

Why 2 Nf3 and 3 d4 is White’s Main Line against the Sicilian

When I started playing chess seriously and studying the opening, the books I consulted were generally good at showing what were (or had been) the main lines of play. However, in a number of instances, they didn’t give any explanation … Continue reading

Posted in Opening Analysis, The Sicilian Defence | Leave a comment