As you can see, webmaster K has rashly given your skip update access to the Ox4NCL website and told him to “fire away”. So. It’s been a while since we posted updates of any sort, so just the headline summer news:
Marcus IM Norm
Marcus scored his first IM norm with 5.5/9 at the Paracin Open in Serbia in mid-July – well done to him! He met five IMs and three GMs, remaining unbeaten throughout. Justin was also there and scored 5/9.
Justin near-miss GM norm
Justin almost bagged a GM norm at the Malaysian Open just concluded, finishing on 6/9 unbeaten; he tells me he had a great position against his GM opp in R9 but said GM wriggled out for a draw. A win would have got him a norm – unlucky!
TeraFinal
Zoe was a joint winner of the Challengers B section in the TeraFinal in August, scoring 5/6 to tie with two others. Her round 6 game was a model draw in the Sicilian: 1. e4 c5 draw agreed! Elsewhere, Dimitrios Z recorded 3.5/6 in the TeraFinal proper to take the U8 prize , while Anna Wang scored 4/6 to take the “best girl” prize.
Phil N says he tackled a tournament in Hourtin, Bourdeaux where the main feature of the prize structure is that winners do not receive cash: instead, they receive their weight in wine, divided by their finishing position. Phil says he got “four bottles for being highest senior”. This must be an incentive to put on as much weight as possible!
Mike H is currently tackling the Heraklion Open in Greece and driving his fan club back home to apoplexy with his play, as is his wont. He can at least say he got in a random … b5 against a GM – he’ll say it was “positionally motivated”! Also in Greece, David Z has just finished the Apokoronas tournament, scoring 6/9 (+6 =0 -3), having the misfortune to meet three GMs with Black. Dimitrios, playing in the same event, matched his father’s 100% White score with 4/4 but was rather less effective with the Black bits, scoring 1/5 – still, a creditable 5/9 for an eight-year-old!