Recently, playing in tournaments has given me mixed feelings - on the one hand, lots of chess, and usually interesting chess at that (I'd like to think I'm not too boring a player)... but on the other, lots of chess to annotate for this blog too! So this post is a compromise really - I present all of the game scores, but with essentially no verbal annotation save a brief summary.
The tournament was the one of the 6 a year when my school takes a good number of our squad along on a minibus. Unfortunately our strongest cohort of players are now in the final year, and in January there are some A-Level modules, so many of my colleagues were revising. (Un)fortunately, I could make it! Grade forced me to hide from most of my team-mates who were in the lower U-135 and (mostly) U-100 sections. Our best scores were 4/6 in the Open, 2.5/6 in the U-170, 5/6 in the U-135 (2nd) and 4/6 in the U-100 (=5th). That essentially highlights what I've perceived all year; our team really does feel the gap between our 200-ish board 1 and our 150-ish board 2.
Anyway, this being rapidplay, blunders prevailed all over the place. I got my first one in early, as early as move 5 in a quite crazy game against Chris Bellers (169), where I blundered a first piece, sacrificed a second, turned my position from completely lost to utterly winning, only to offer a draw when evaluated at +9 because of failing to evaluate properly in time trouble:
My round 2 game, against Shane McCabe (165) was an unfortunate one for him. After hearing that he plays the London System, I ventured the Dutch again, only to find myself induced to entering my least favourite Stonewall structure yet again. After slowly outplaying me positionally, my opponent missed a couple of good opportunities (he stood at +3 at one stage) and allowed me to escape to an equal Rook ending, where I stopped recording. With more time, he outplayed me once more, only to throw the win away for a second time in a pawn ending; with White pawns on a5 and e5; King on d6 vs. Black pawns on a7 and b7; King on f7, white ventured 1. Kc7?! b6 2. axb6 axb6 3. Kxb6?? Ke6 1/2-1/2. 3. Kd7! keeps the whole point.
For round 3, I played the quickly-improving junior Yang-Jian Zhou, smaller brother of England's youngest IM. For now, his grade of 122, which made this game especially depressing. Our only previous game (at the 2010 Caterham Congress) saw me improvise Accelerated Dragon theory and get quickly destroyed for my trouble. This time, learning some more, only to be surprised by 10... Na5!?, didn't help and I went down in flames even more convincingly than last time. For the next few days, I was in a needless panic that he would finally receive his deserved promotion in the Whitgift board order in our next Briant Poulter League game (see next post.)
Round 4 saw me play the young Akshaya Kalaiyalahan (128) again. After we both handled a Fianchetto King's Indian Defence with somewhat lacking strategic understanding (the central tension between the e/f pawns shouldn't be maintained!) I accepted a rather early draw though we had both used a good proportion of time; I thought my position was quite fragile, and it seems she shall reclaim her sacrificed (?) pawn soon. Actually, it's about -0.5 after my intended and good consolidating move 18... Bf5.
Round 5 was a less extreme version of what was to follow; I tried a King's Gambit which was effectively declined, so little effort did Shyam Kalairajah (132) expend trying to hold onto it. I constructed a promising attack, but the black position proved solid. When I tried to turn the battle into a positional struggle against his doubled central pawns from move 17, I soon ended up losing a pawn of my own. In time trouble, my attempts to confuse the issue only led my King into a mating net. But on the last point, I have no regrets, for I was lost if I didn't try to escape. A shame, as it threatened to be a nice game.
The 6th and final round was my fourth in a row against a junior; 133-graded Girinath Haridas. I had noted before that his slow-play rating is considerably lower (below 110, if memory serves), and discovered in this game that he plays extremely quickly. This is a good practical device at rapidplay, and allowed him to escape punishment for tactically losing a pawn for no compensation right out of the opening, which I held all the way to an ending only to blunder two pawns whilst 20 minutes down on the clock (after I stopped recording; a mixed blessing) and allow Queens to be forced off on the wrong side of K+Q vs. K+Q+P; with my King miles away, my 2-minute claim was bound to fail. A shame, as I had returned to an old favourite, the Benko Gambit, and Haridas was but the latest to fail to impress me with the 5. b6!? pawn-return variation.
Overall, not my best tournament, though having played so many juniors it is not especially useful to calculate a grading performance until the next list comes out later this week. Interesting games, but unfortunate outcomes. At quick time controls like this, my practical play leaves much to be desired, as again I was down on time in most of the rounds.
Anyway, now I got to play some slower games - so onto real chess!
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