Early morning start

5 o'clock, Saturday morning and I'm about to set off on the 160 mile drive to Kidlington in Oxfordshire for another chess tournament. Not the ideal preparation for the dreaded round 1, so its hard to see my round 1 hoodoo ending today.

I am dropping Michelle off at East Midlands airport en route, since she is flying back to Berlin at the end of her extended Christmas visit, so its a sad start to the day for a couple of reasons.

On the plus side, Russell Goodfellow will be playing at Kidlington, and Colin Fell will be there too, making one of his rare comeback appearances. I will be staying at his flat in Reading. It will be good to catch back up with them.

Actually, I don't have high hopes for this tournament - it's a very tough one because the bottom section is for under-145 rated players which makes it about as hard as it gets for players of my lowly stamp. Under the circumstances 50% would be a superb achievement. It's a 5-round event and I'm taking a bye tonight so I can catch up with Colin - plus after a 5am start, three games in a day is not going to be possible. Two is going to be a push.

At least I had a reasonable result this week - played in a local league rapid event at Holme Valley and managed to win 1, lose 1. I was the only person who managed any points at all for Netherton. My win was quite good, and I had a good attack in the game I lost, against a much higher-rated player, so it wasn't a bad result, especially considering that rapid chess is not my forte.