Saturday 10 January 2015

Another glorious day in New Zealand

Although the New Zealand Open fiisihed yesterday, the chess has ot stopped, with the New Zealand Rapidplay Championship on today and tomorrow. The Rapidplay attracted a field of 96 players which is very impressive given the Open has 115 players. (I did note that in Australia events like this would struggle to get 50% of the main field playing).
I played a couple of games, in the role of the 'filler', making sure that everyone got a game. I finished on 1.5/2, with a half point bye in the first round, although I did play a (serious) friendly game against William Li in round 1, after his opponent failed to show (I lost after blundering a rook). I did win my second game against Prashant Mistry, who apart from his loss to me finished the day on 4/5, including wins over 2 (of the many) current New Zealand Champions.
The whole day was quite enjoyable, with the Auckland weather a standout. Unfortunately my trip has come to an end, and I am up at 4am for a 7am flight back to Australia. However given the amount of travel I did last year (4 Australia to Europe round trips), the flight across the Tasman should be a bit of a doddle. I'll barely have time to catch up with Downton Abbey before the plane touches down in Sydney!

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