Hello everyone,
Apologies for the slight irregularity of the newsletters.
After a few weekend camps, we are back to a normal schedule. This morning Sam Shankland returned to the Academy briefly to give a lesson before he is off for another trilogy of tournaments. 960 in St Louis, European Club Cup, and finally the US Championship. He played really poorly in the Sinquefield Cup, with many blunders and bad reactions. Worst going into a lost pawn ending against Vachier-Lagrave after two minutes thinking, falsely presuming all was just a draw… Still, his rating is unchanged and he remains no 25 in the World (when you discount retired Wang Hao).
Both Jacob and Jonathan Blackburn are playing the Online Olympiad. Jacob is board one for Scotland and Jonathan board one for Wales. They were in the same group in division three this weekend. After six rounds Scotland is leading the group, while Wales is in 4th place with good tie-breaks. The top three qualifies for division 2, played Thursday to Saturday. Wales and Scotland played in round 5. Jacob picked up his kids from hockey and Jonathan walked the dog… Jonathan has 2½ from 5 and Jacob 4.
Tarun is on 4/4 for Ireland on junior 1. Lim Zhuo Ren 3/6 for Malaysia (which is leading) on board 1. Sorry if we have overlooked anyone else playing.
Guest lecturers Gawain Jones and Tiger Hillarp Persson are playing the European Championship in Reykjavik. So is Jacob Sylvan (1.5/3), Andre Sousa (1/2 – probably 2/3), Tarun (1/2), Trisha (1/2), Yahli (1/3). Sorry if we missed anyone.
We will be very, very happy to see your posts on the Forum about your games!
The lesson on Wednesday with GM Ivan Cheparinov is sadly delayed till a later date. Jacob will do a Fundamentals in Action lesson at 11 am London time.
Alexander Motylev is back on Saturday with a lesson on recent games.
Ivan Salgado has agreed to do further opening reviews in September after his great lessons in July on the World Cup. See here for a full understanding of their potential value. Timings will be up in the near future.
Sam Shankland will record a few episodes for Position of the Week for our YouTube Channel, which will be released slowly. Feel free to share Position of the Week 17 on social media, it really helps to get people to know us!
Your friends at Killer Chess Training,
Sam, Jacob, and Kallia
