The trip to Baku began this morning. Our team is now in Istanbul, at the Ataturk airport, basically chilling out and waiting for our connecting flight to Baku, which is tonight at 9pm local time.

I am writing this from the Primeclass Lounge where I accidentaly met Bulgarian GM Dejan Bojkov, who will serve as coach of the team from New Zealand. Now our first board, GM Nedev, joined us and we’re chatting and catching up on chess news and life in general, as it usually happens when you haven’t seen friends for some time.

The mood is positive, a welcome change after my last couple of weeks. Hope that helps.

We should arrive in Baku tomorrow, at approximately 1am, so it will be tough as on the same day Round 1 starts and we need to rest, prepare and play. We don’t expect a strong opponent in Round 1 though, so perhaps we can get away with the sub-optimal travel plans (most teams are already in Baku, to acclimatize and get rest).

I hope to be able to post regularly from Baku, but this will largely depend on how often I play and the tournament schedule (my own, plus the travel to and from the playing hall, meal times and time spent on various activities).

The games have begun. Let’s see how they turn out.