I know I have been pretty inactive on this blog. Since the turn of the year, I have been awfully bogged down by work and the dreaded audit peak period has been as hectic and chaotic as ever. My advice to anyone who is thinking of taking long unrecorded leave, especially auditors, to plan your return carefully. It is NOT wise to jump straight into the peak after disappearing for a year.
In any case, I survived and (my colleagues won't be liking this but well...) I'm looking forward to 2 extremely strong tournaments - the Asian Continental Chess Championships and the Asian Nation Cups. The latter is the Asian Team Championships renamed and the team composition can be found here.
I badly needed much match practice and after a casual chat on FB with Junior, we managed to arrange a series of training games which have been covered here and here. I am especially grateful to Li Yang who sportingly agreed to play despite only playing 1 rapid tournament a year (the Civil Service Championships, covered here) plus busy working hours plus taking care of the baby. Junior has been a wonderful host throughout, providing food, drinks even dinner, and the occasional loud kibitzing. Round 2 would take place tomorrow morning and as alway, SCN will be the first to report.
