The chess marathon continued last night with another school match, this time back in the top division of the Surrey league. We were at home to KCS Wimbledon, who were, like us, promoted last season (but not as winners!) It can be challenging to get one's players to take the match seriously when they point out, quite correctly, that last year we took them to the cleaners, winning 5-1 at home and 6-0 away. But their squad has gotten stronger; ours weaker, and two of my first-choice players were unavailable. I could see things going horribly wrong!
Luckily, on the night they too were hit by absences, so the grade distribution was 192-144, 143-164, 129-146, 114-123, 123-105, 133-94. I was on board 3, against one of their new players. It still promised to be a very tight match, and I suspected my result could have quite an influence on the outcome. After being mildly surprised in the opening, I recovered my bearings. How galling that even when one succeeds in getting me out of book, I still play the main-line moreorless by accident! The result was an interesting but brief draw:
First, in understanding my rather generous draw offer, note as mentioned in the annotations that we did win the match! (4-2; we won on boards 1, 5 and 6, drew on 2 and 3, lost on 4) It looked for a time that it might be even closer than that, so this half-point was certainly a useful investment, even if in the end I could have lost with a clear consequence. Of the game itself, I am pleased that I found 7... d5, which gives black a comfortable game. By the end, white has a few niggling problems, most obviously the potential for tactics on the d-file, that perhaps mean I ought to have played on. It is impressive that I could outplay a 146 with black so comfortably - the Grand Prix Attack does give white good chances if its victims are chosen carefully, but objectively promises white very little, as evidenced above.
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