Its almost been 2 months since I last posted on this blog! I've just been that busy of late with things that I haven't had a chance to post, or at the very least, felt like I had other priorities that took precedence over the blog.
I hope to catch up on things in the next week or so, updating the blog with various goings on, most of which will be chess-related, though some will not be.
Some things that have happened since the last update:
The new Chess Victoria webpage has gone live, largely thanks to the work of Paul Cavezza, however after the initial setup, I have been responsible for quite a number of updates & changes of late.
The Victorian Championships has been run & won in convincing fashion by IM Bobby Cheng. I was the arbiter for the event & was also responsible for updating the website & producing bulletins (also available online) during the tournament.
The Victorian Reserves has also finished. I was also the arbiter for this event, which finished in a tie for first between Pano Skiotis & Jack Puccini.
I also ran the City of Melbourne Open at Melbourne Chess Club, which was won by IM Mirko Rujevic. The Malitis Memorial is the next event at MCC, which starts this Monday, which I am also the arbiter for.
The Northern Star Chess Squad has continued & has seen a regular group of 4 attendees, with a few casual attendances throughout the term. It was also good to see some of these children performing well in school chess events late in term 2. The squad will begin again in term 3 in early August & it is my favourite coaching for the week as the additional time & interest level of the students makes for more interesting lessons, with material being covered in greater detail & depth than is possible in a normal school-based coaching group.
I've also run a number of Chess Victoria School Zonal events, in addition to my normal school coaching groups.
The Billanook Classic has also had another event, although the April event was more successful for me than the June event. The next event in July is on next weekend, so hopefully I can have a result more like the April one this time!
In non-chess related news, both my Dream Team & Super Coach sides have improved significantly as the season has progressed. I'm now in 2124th overall in Dream Team (out of 234620 teams), while in Super Coach I am 16438th overall (out of 310724 teams), although prior to a shocking week last week (where I had Jobe Watson as captain when he was injured & subbed off in the first quarter of the game) I had been regularly inside the top 10000 teams.
To add to the complications, I'm going to be moving house in the next few weeks, so things won't be getting any less busy in the coming weeks!
