A fortnight ago (yes, too long ago for this blog to argue it's up-to-date, but I've been busy of late) I played my penultimate county game of the season, for the U-160s at home to Middlesex. I was on board 9 of 16 in an outgraded Surrey team, but it seemed fate was on our side, and this messy win was part of a 9.5-6.5 victory:
In the words of my opponent after the game, "well I think we both made a mess of that one!" He has a point; by getting in ...d5 I defeated his entire strategy and was soon winning easily. With the benefit of a couple of tactical oversights from me, he was soon equal, only to throw away the game again with 28. Rd2??. After that, my play was accurate and the game held no further surprises.
It's a curious phenomenon, but I've observed it in online blitz too - in amateur games it seems that when there is a material imbalance, concentrated piece power seems to prevail more often than the strategy books tell us it should - I can think of a fair few games with 2R vs. Q that I've lost on the internet, and in the rare occurence here of 2N+B vs. Q, the Queen was able to win out even though things didn't strike me as promising.
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