Before this blog

 I have been writing this blog for almost 15 years now, but there were things I did before this. There was in fact a lot of writing, in the shape of tournament bulletins, club newsletters and most notably, Australian Chess Forum. 

One of the last things I did before starting this blog was to organise the 2006-7 Australian Open. As part of this Stephen Mugford and myself put together the tournament website, which contained a lot of useful information. Somewhat surprisingly, the website is still online at https://actjcl.org.au/ausopen2006/index.html 

Apart from tournament results etc, you can download (or read online) the full set of tournament bulletins from this event (which was won by Zong-Yuan Zhao). While I was mainly busy as the event organiser, I did take time to play in the Major event, finishing 4th, in part due to the following final round win.

Press,Shaun - Ali,Mos [B03]
2006-7 Australian Major, 07.01.2007

1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. d4 d6 4. c4 Nb6 5. f4 g5 6. Nc3 Bg7 7. Nf3 gxf4 8. Bxf4 Nc6 9. exd6 cxd6 10. d5 Na5 11. Rc1 Bg4 12. b3 O-O 13. Bd3 e5 14. dxe6 fxe6 15. Bxd6 Rf7 16. Be2 Rd7 17. c5 Bxf3 18. Bxf3 Qh4+ 19. g3 Qb4 20. Qc2 Nd5 21. Bxd5 exd5 22. O-O Rc8 23. Qf5 Rcd8 24. Qxd5+ Kh8 25. Ne4 Qd4+ 26. Qxd4 Bxd4+ 27. Kg2 Re8 28. Rf8+ Rxf8 29. Bxf8 Nc6 30. Bd6 Nb4 31. Rd1 Nc6 32. Rxd4 Nxd4 33. Be5+ Kg8 34. Nf6+ Kf7 35. Nxd7 Nf5 36. Bf4 1-0