Rare Birds 2012

Eric van Reem, last seen on this blog in 'A Tempo and a Half in a Symmetrical Position', sends news of several chess960 events in Europe. The relevant pages are all in languages other than English, but with Google Translate (translate.google.com) that's hardly a problem.

• Congratulations to Hans-Walter Schmitt (last seen in 'Can I use this name "Fischer Chess"?'), who recently celebrated his 60th birthday. You can find the full report with lots of photos at "Schach macht tigerstark!" Hans-Walter Schmitt wird 60. See the links at the end for much more about 'HWS'.
  
  
• Last year, in A Few More Chess960 Resources, I mentioned the annual chess960 event organized by Fischerz.nl ('On-Line bulletin van de schaakvereniging FISCHER Z'); on that site, click 'Random Chess: Aankondiging NK 2012' for details about this year's event, to be held Saturday, 26 May. • Eric van Reem: 'They call it Fischer Random Chess, because the organizing club is FischerZ!'
  
  
• An event I've managed to overlook until now is the Schachclub Waldbronn - Chess960 Open. The 8th edition is scheduled for Sunday, 17 June. The 2011 event attracted 30 players, ten of them titled.

Maybe Rare Bird Sightings aren't so rare any more.