It has been a long time since my last post, mainly because nothing much post-worthy has happened lately. Got up 5.30am, went to work, came back in the evening, had dinner, watched Daily show/Colbert report, is not an exciting post.
Yesterday got interesting, at least for me. I got forwarded some pictures from 1966. Can you tell who this handsome young man is :) ?
I also booked my ticket to Istanbul last night. I found a direct flight from Singapore to Istanbul on Singapore Airlines for about AUD $1100 and a connecting flight Gold coast - Singapore with Scoot for AUD $265. Not bad. On the way back I will play in the Raja Nazrin Shah international open in Kuala Lumpur. This tournament is always very strong. Last time I played it was won by Hou Yifan, before she won the Women's World Championship, this time Sergei Tiviakov is playing!
This tournament is organised and run by my good friend and colleague Peter Long and this year he has promised me that we will take a small side trip to Ankor Wat before the event so expect some nice pictures. If you are a foodie then there is no better place than KL in my opinion and no better guide than Peter.
Istanbul is going to be my first Olympiad since Turin 2006 so I am training a bit to get myself in some sort of shape. Apart from opening preparation I have been doing some studies to train my aging brain to calculate again. Want to see one?
White to play and scam a draw.
S. Zhilis 1928
I have also been torturing my best students with these. Why should I be the only one to suffer?
Have a nice day :)
The first move must be 1. d6 .
ReplyDeleteThen promote and exchange queens and get into some kind of drawn pawn ending with opposition. I'm too lazy to work it out though.
Jimmy is working smart - clearly saving his energy/effort for the Olympiad! I remember before I played Khanty-Mansiysk that I combined a business trip to Manila with playing a few games in in between meetings at some strong International Open and after I won a couple of games in a row I decided I was in decent shape and there was no point in doing further damage!
ReplyDeleteNo drawn pawn endings in sight. Surely Malaysia's first board and first IM can do better than that! :)
ReplyDelete1.d6 c6 with Qd8 in the end?
ReplyDeleteWell done Remy!
ReplyDeleteYour tip really helped, at first i also looked at pawn endings :)
ReplyDeleteof course! 1.d6 cxd6 is actually losing for black after eventual Qh1+.
ReplyDeleteI saw the solution in about 10 seconds, but to be fair I've seen a very similar study before.
ReplyDeleteYOU WOKE UP AT 5:30am !!!!????
ReplyDeleteYes, seems I am on European time or something. I used to go to sleep around 5.30am!
ReplyDelete