Legnica and London

So I've just finished two interesting tournaments, in Legnica at the 'Voivoda Cup', and at the London Chess Classic. In the Polish tournament I managed to claw back the rating points I lost in Budapest by winning my last two rounds (having drawn all but one of my previous 7). By doing this I finished 5th in the tournament with a juicy 6 point rating gain. The event was well organised and Poland is cheap, but hardly anyone spoke English so I felt a bit isolated from the other players.

London started promisingly with two wins followed by a draw against my 4NCL teammate Laurence Webb. Another win and a hard fought draw against GM Gawain Jones followed. A draw against his housemate IM Thomas Rendle left me in a good position of 5.5/7 with white against GM Arkell in Round 8. However I didn't play that well and lost :( Fortunately I managed to win a decent game against the World Under 12 (!) champion in the last round to end up with a solid but not very spectacular 3.5 rating point gain.

I am now only a few days away from the US leg of the World Chess tour, and have been trying to prepare hard for it. It's certainly going to be an adventure!