A Scary Play

Yesterday I spent some time listing some of the recently released chess books on ebay. We've let the chess side of ebay slip a bit as we've been concentrating on the trophies and cds.
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/CCF-MindGames_Chess_Chess-Books-General_W0QQfsubZ4QQssPageNameZSTOREQ3aPROMOBOXQ3aLINKSQQtZkm

In the evening John and I went to the theatre in Worthing. I had won a pair of tickets to 'The Woman in Black' and we were looking forward to an enjoyable night. It is a chilling ghost story, so I spent a lot of time holding John's hand for reassurance. Unfortunately, at a particularly scary moment. I jumped, grabbed his hand even tighter and bent his wrist back. He's OK now, but was not too happy last night!

Ebay Again

Yesterday was another typical ebay listing day. Our part-timer was ill, so John and I were frantically trying to make sure that sufficient new listings went live last night to finish a week on Sunday. Mainly that was jazz cds, but John also listed 2 just released train and flight simulations. I was also making sure that our full range of leather key fobs were on the site. No time for any chess study - we hardly stopped for lunch. At least today will be a little quieter.

CCF World Cup Match

Monday was chess club night again. We have a new competition there, the CCF World Cup, which is an individual event in rounds. On Monday, that is what I was playing in. I knew that my opponent was tricky, although I had managed to swindle a win against him the previous time that we played. I was sure that he would be out for revenge for that. I was black, but knew that I would need to prepare for our match if I was to stand any chance. I carefully learnt a response to his opening that would give me equality going into the middle game, when I knew that we would both be relying on our chess ability rather than our knowledge of openings. He varied on move 10, which gave me a lot of confidence about my position. I think I lost my way for a few moves after that, but soon was able to treble his pawns on the g file. A rather nice, though I say so myself, tactic and I was also a pawn and the exchange up. We played on a little more, before an error by my opponent enabled me to pin his queen to his king. He resigned, but even without the error, I think I probably should have won. So, I am at last feeling a little more confident about my ability to play this game!

Ebay Listing

Most of this week has been spent working on our ebay listings. At present we are selling a large number of jazz cds - used but in great condition. I think there's about 1,000 of them to list altogether, so this takes up a fair amount of time each week. We also sell brand new books on a variety of subjects, and trophies and engravables. It was a pleasant break at the end of the week to spend time photographing and listing pin badges and key fobs for the ebay shop. We are able to provide these with a wide variety of centres for all sorts of sports and hobbies and had recently taken a delivery of these. John tends to do a lot of the ebay posting as I don't tend to get on too well with the packing tape machine (apparently it is all in the wrist action).
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/CCF-MindGames

Chess Study

Monday is our chess club night and I had started preparing for my match last week. Then, I had a sudden brainstorm that I had seen my opponent playing a certain opening as black (I was white). So, I stopped what I had been looking at and started on something completely different. Needless to say he didn't play that opening, but at least we drew - I'm sure that I had a win in there somewhere though. As John said, the other study was still useful for the future.

ECF Grand Prix

This week has been a week of listing on ebay and generally working on the business. However, on Wednesday we had a trip down to Hastings to see John's family and also to deliver the ECF Grand Prix trophies to their office in Battle. CCF MindGames sponsored the ECF Grand Prix last year and are doing so again this year. We felt that it was important to many of our customers and friends and wanted it to continue. We have been supplying trophies for a few years and have had a computerised engraving machine for a few months, so providing the trophies fits in nicely for us.

The new Grand Prix tables are out and I was pleased to see that I am 4th in the bottom section. As I haven't played 7 tournaments yet, I am hopeful to improve on this. However, there is a long way to go until the end of the season and I've had a few bad tournaments as well as some good ones.

http://www.ccfworld.com/MindGames/index.html

http://www.ccfengraving.co.uk/