Big Issue of Australian Chess

Got home today with the latest issue of Brian Jones' Australian Chess magazine waiting for me in the mailbox.

I can't imagine that there'd be too many local chess fans who don't already subscribe. But if you don't have a subscription, then you might want to seriously consider getting at least the latest issue. It's a classic! Hec, I reckon even Mr Peter Parr will want one. There's the usual report about the two big events we just had, Doeberl and the SIO, but what I really enjoyed reading was GM Zong Yuan-Zhao's account of his climb to the heights of grandmaster status.

Here he is receiving some timely psychological advice from legendary trainer, Laszlo Hazai.

Here I would like to briefly mention a very important person who helped me through in this really difficult situation. His name is Laszlo Hazai and he can be considered to be the main trainer of the famous Polgar sisters during their formative years. He is not only a strong player himself, an even better opening theoretician but even more importantly for me, a wonderful psychology consultant. After my first four games, he sat me down and simply said, "okay forget about this GM norm, you are getting too excited, just play the remaining games and don't shed too many ELO points". Very down to Earth advice which worked wonders!