A couple of posts ago, I had cause to thank the wide drawing margin of chess, that enabled me to hold Ian Pratley to a draw despite failing to gain as much compensation for a gambit pawn as I could or should have done; in large part thanks to his being afflicted with doubled pawns.
But as they say, what goes around comes around, and this game is almost a carbon copy save for the small detail that this time I was the frustrated player with a useless extra pawn. I was playing Richard Davis, a 106 who has been regularly in the 120s before being ill for much of last season, and this was on board 2 of the away match in the 4-board Croydon League Division 3; South Norwood B - Wallington B.
So in the end, although I saw further tactically than did my opponent to see the ...Nxd4 idea with a discovered attack on his light-squared Bishop, I made it hard for myself by not accounting for the excellent water-muddying move 17. Nf5!. The doubled f-pawns are annoying enough that, even with B vs N and pawns on both sides, black cannot win. In this week I have had 3 games against opponents graded 122, 109 and 106, and won only one game of the three. In my defence, all 3 games were with the black pieces, which was vaguely annoying, although I had a ridiculously long stretch of blacks last season. I still wait for a run of whites!
The Caro-Kann into which I directed the game is an opening that I do play from time to time, but I prefer to use it as a drawing weapon against stronger opponents - as this game shows, it is not really suited for gaining an advantage with black against lower-graded players, especially for people like me who are not so positionally strong but rely on tactics and aggression to carry the day. Even when I found some tactical ideas and won a pawn, it was insufficient. The game was much less sharp than those I usually produce. I was contemplating making the Caro-Kann my primary weapon against 1. e4 a little while ago, but I think that ought to be postponed at least.
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