My Chess in 2018

A move anywhere usually means some changes to a person's lifestyle. I have moved to Drouin which is about an hour from my work in eastern Melbourne, and another 20-30 minutes from the centre of Melbourne. Chess is a big part of my life and I still want to play my one game a week schedule that I've been doing.

The club which I have been a part of for a long time is the Melbourne Chess Club. However, MCC meet on a Monday night for long play games with a finish time sometimes in excess of 11:00, it means I won't be getting home until the early hours of the morning. Not good if I want to work on Tuesday! The alternative I am considering is Box Hill Chess Club which meets on a Friday night. This is better for work as Saturday is generally a day off, but usually worse for chess as Friday night most workers are exhausted. There are weekend chess clubs, but I'm not prepared to give up that valuable time which I spend with Caroline and relax.

So I have some time to think about it and decide as both clubs are on shutdown until the end of summer with both clubs starting their first 2018 long play events just after Australia Day on 26th January. In the meantime there is the Australian Championship to look forward to, running from 2-12 January. Unfortunately I'll be away on holiday in New Zealand then, but I'll follow the results and catch up on some games after. The Championship is followed by the Junior Championship which is being held in Melbourne. I'll be dropping into this so I'll see some live action.

And I always follow the games of Hastings which is in its 93rd edition and Wijk (80th edition) which is running at the same time as our Junior Champs. So it looks to be a good summer of chess for me as a follower of events which will hopefully give me the inspiration to take my chess back to the 2200 level and beyond next year, whichever club I choose to play at.

In the meantime, have a look at this amazing game from London 2017 where Ian Nepomniachtchi plays the amazing novelty 7.g4 against ex-World Champion Anand. The game erupts into a crazy unbalanced affair with White's king stuck in the centre but feeling safer than Black's castled king. I know there were some great games played in 2018, but this was one of my favourites.

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