Many greetings from the winter lands of Romania! I am struggling to send you all the photos I've made so far, but the Internet connection is very slow or sometimes completely gone, for reasons that are obvious: the weather is simply incredible in Romania right now, and is creating a lot of problems and headaches. It was even worse before, when the roads were blocked, but it seems that the bad times are not over yet. I cannot believe that, after a very warm December and a sunny January, we have such an awful February – payback time from the cold season I guess.

All of this is the reason why the National Championship of Romania was postponed for 48 hours: we couldn't have made it to Sarata Monteoru, the place we are at right now. Romania was and still is under heavy snows, with deep sub zero temperatures – think about Siberia and you are coming close. When will the winter's wrath end I wonder?!

On our way to Sarata Monteoru; in the foreground Irina Bulmaga and Smaranda Padurariu

Many thanks to our bus driver, who safely brought us to the final destination!
You cannot imagine the amount of snow we saw on the roads, European ones!

Our chess club chose to stay in the Villa Olga, run by the tournament organizer Mihai Posedaru, who is trying extremely hard to make us all happy. Unfortunately, he is not able to stop the snowy clouds nor to ask winter to simply go away. We are a bit far from the tournament hall – around two kilometres through snow and uphill. Why go to North Pole, when the North Pole has come to us?

The winter landscape in Sarata Monteoru, which is incredibly beautiful

A little private house covered with more snow than I can remember here in Romania

But, as you can see, nothing stops us from having our national championship. There are some technical issues, such as: how to get to the playing hall through the snow drifts. Well, we are Romanians, survivors, we will always find a way. You will see in the pictures how. Which is all quite funny to be honest. I felt like a child again, and I know that many players were eager to try it at least once. So we combined necessity with pleasure and safely arrived on time for the games.

Making your way through the snow-covered landscape

You have to watch out for traffic on the narrow roads to the event

If you are lucky – like the girls from our club – you can hitch a ride...

... to the tournament hall, which is of course itself covered with snow.

We are playing in separate sections, men and women – an open tournament with nine rounds for women and eleven for men. Although there are only 27 participants in our women section, all the strongest players are present, fighting for the top spots. The same goes for the men section, where there are 123 players participating. Only Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu is missing – he chose to play in the Aeroflot. The rate of play is 90 minutes for 40 moves and 15 minutes for the rest, with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting with move one. It's quite a fast tempo, so there are many interesting games to watch, with many ending in time troubles.

The playing hall for the women's section

That's me on the left, playing against Otilia Baciu in round two

Mother against daughter: the game Cristina vs Veronica Foisor ended in a draw

Another family encounter: Irina Bulmaga playing against her sister Elena

WCM Andreea-Marioara Cosman, rated 1885, my opponent from the first round. She is young
and talented –I had to work very hard and needed some luck to get the full point from her.

Dinner time for our chess club! Many children came to the Championship to gain experience

(Mămăligă, our bread replacement, made from corn flour. It is one of the things I miss when I'm abroad

The playing hall for the top boards; you can see some bags on the floor – they
contain gifts from the organization, and are highly appreciated!

Mircea Parligras and Constantin Lupulescu, the two players above 2600, were a little
bit late for the start of the round. But that can be explained: it was 09.30 in the morning.

Open Tournament – Top rankings after round seven

• Full results of all 123 participants here

Women's tournament – Top rankings after round five

• Full results of all 28 participants here

Links Official tournament site Games in PGN The top games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

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