Round 2 was to be a rather different affair from my bore of attrition in round 1 against a 110. Now I played a 186, the well-known junior player Matthew Wadsworth. This game, despite the fact that I lost was far more interesting. I like to think that I at least played my part in a sharp contest, though inevitably he made most of the running:
My conclusion on this game might seem strange - I don't think I ever before truly appreciated the value of consciously playing on the side of the board where the opponent's King isn't placed - and yet I realised this in a game where I got slaughtered on the Kingside after the chronic and self-created light-square weakness was exposed. Of course, sometimes I have played on the 'wrong' side of the board, but usually just because my pieces have drifted to one side or another in the natural flow of the game. Here I made the conscious decision to try and break open his Queenside, and focussed my efforts there. In fact I was quite close to success in this plan, but ultimately black was faster, and as we all know, checkmate ends the game.
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