Before I begin my coverage of the South England U-18 Championship, some good news - the January 2012 grading list is out! I was one of a few Sutton Grammar players to enjoy a solid increase; indeed, our top 5 boards all went up by more than 10 points. I jumped up from 129 to 144 for slowplay, but my U-170 Richmond Rapidplays have caught up with my rapidplay grade, down 4 points to 134. Still, since the Intermediate section there is U-135, happy days!
At the weekend, I played in the 5-round junior tournament at Yateley Manor School, the South England U-18 Championship. Alongside were a series of tournaments for the England Junior Squad, and though a trio of Castles team-mates had a good performance in these, they go up to U-16 only and in any case I started playing seriously much too late to reach the required strength to hold my own. But enough wistfulness - in my tournament I was seeded 6th of 18 in my section (on the new grades, which were published on the same day as this tournament started), and started against the 94-graded Chris Stern. As befits a junior tournament, I quickly faced an Open Game, surprised my opponent with the 'unorthodox' choice of the Scotch Game, won a pawn very quickly, and proceeded to rapidly throttle him of space, constructing a nice checkmate inside 30 moves despite the trade of Queens.
My opponent's choice of 3... d6?! set the tone for the rest of the game. White was a pawn up as early as move 6, but crucially I did not ease off there; rather, my forces began to advance up the board with ever-increasing speed, beginning the decisive breakthrough with 21. e5 - shortly after, the superior co-ordination of the remaining white pieces allowed a quick finish.
Whilst I can have no complaints about my performance in the above game, perhaps it was a pyrrhic victory to prevail so quickly, as I then had to wait three-and-a-half hours until round 2 started! That game, against a significantly higher-graded opponent, did not go so well...
No comments:
Post a Comment