While idly flicking through recent games of Vishy Anand, my eye was drawn to the position on move 24 in his game against Robert Ruck.     It reminded me strongly of a very impressive game that Gawain Jones had played against Boris Gelfand at the 2013 London Classic:   1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bb5+ …

The next instalment in our examination of my games from the ROC Nova College Open in July is my 4th round game, the 3rd game of a rather tiring Saturday! I was desperate to finish promptly and have an early night but as always in such cases, the exact opposite happened! As always, a playable …

In this column, we continue our examination of episodes from the ROC Nova College Open in July. Going into the last round I was leading with 4,5 / 5 after a tightly-controlled win with Black against the second seed GM Maxim Turov. I had been expecting to play another GM but the pairing system threw …

In this column, we start to take a look at some interesting moments from the recent Nova College tournament in Haarlem which I managed to win for the 4th time, and for the 3rd time outright. I wasn’t at my best for most of the tournament, but that led at least to plenty of excitement! …

Playing 2 or even 3 games a day makes a weekend tournament into a test of endurance. Being able to defeat weaker players without expending too much energy is a key skill of the seasoned road warrior. I didn’t manage to demonstrate this skill convincingly in either Limburg or Haarlem. My second rounds in particular …