Queensland Rules!

Olympiad Team

I recently noticed that the entire Australian Olympiad team is made up of Queenslanders, only our reserve, Max Illingworth, hails from New South Wales. I take a small liberty here as GM David Smerdon is registered as ACT but was raised in Brisbane. The Olympiad appeal is going quite well but the target has still not been reached. Another $5000 and we are there. Queenslanders! It is your team!

On the donations page you can browse photo's of past Olympiads and check out our previous performances.

Ian Rogers

GM Ian Rogers has been nominated Women's Captain! The Girls must be thrilled. As was pointed out by a reader who preferred to stay anonymous, Ian is commentating on the Tal Memorial.  His excellent blow by blow account of the games can be seen on Chesstv.com.
 Ian played the following game at my first Olympiad, Manila 1992. This masterpiece won the second brilliancy prize. Many people thought it should have been first. Enjoy.

Queensland Minor Championship

More locally, last weekend the Queensland minor was held at the Sherwood community centre in southern Brisbane. I dropped in to see how my  students were doing and was very impressed. Martin Jack, who joined the Elite Squad the week before won the event, (=1st 5/6)

Tom Slater Jones was close behind in third place with 4.5/6 

while Tony Zhong, pictured above playing Tom (draw) finished in 10th on 3.5/6 after losing a tough battle in the last round. 

David Liu who's rating has recently jumped 300 points to 662, beat two 1200's on the first day

despite suffering from a cold. This caught up with him on day two.  

If these young players maintain their interest in chess then I suspect Queensland will dominate the Olympiad team for decades to come :-)

Academy News

Well yours truly has been a little slack lately so between giving lessons, watching my students play and following the Tal memorial, not all that much has happened. Sunday the Elite Squad will meet again and finally the website www.doubleroo.com.au  should disengage itself from this blog.....barring technical issues. Stay tuned Amigo's.