Gelfand is World Cup Champion

The final blitz tie-break was actually reasonably exciting. Gelfand, the top seed, came through by winning three of the four blitz games in the tie-break. Not a bad performance from the Israeli, and good to see him getting a tournament victory under his belt.

Overall, however, the games in the London tournament were far more exciting. Although he ended up down the order, Luke McShane entertained the crowd with his zany openings and enterprising style, and was rewarded with a number of victories. The stylish teenager David Howell played the tournament of his life, finishing undefeated on +1 for a 2700 performance (chess note: ‘+1’ means he won more than he lost, in this case winning one game and drawing the rest).

The overload of chess has been both exciting and exhausting for chess fans in the Australian time-zone over the past month, but now we reach the standard Christmas lull. Cricket takes over for most of us, until the Australian Open kicks off in the New Year. I’ll keep you updated on how that unfolds; at this stage, my mates Zong-Yuan Zhao and Gawain Jones will be looking for a big victory, and it’s hard to see anyone else competing for the Cup. But as we know, I’ve been wrong before…

In other news, I’ve decided to start the “100 Pushups” challenge (www.hundredpushups.com). Instead of the rather tacky pushupslogger.com, I might keep a running tab on here. The rather ambitious target is 100 in a row before the New Year; today’s initial ‘test’ puts me at 42, so it’s going to be tight.