First, a concession that I am falling ever further behind on the blog. In fact the reason for this was playing in the Surrey Easter Congress, so I am now even further behind! Thankfully I resisted the temptation to do the rapidplay.
Anyway, my slowplay results have been pretty good lately. In complete contrast to a couple of seasons ago, I am now holding my own against, even sometimes beating, 150+ players, to the extent that my performance in the Major at the aforementioned Congress was rather good. However rapidplay remains an issue, as do 170+ players. When I found myself on board 1 in my Stoneleigh Trophy team, way back on the 21st March, I had to confront both problems at once, playing the 186-graded Michael Singleton. On the other hand, our team (outgraded for this round 134-186, 102-178, 106-160, 96-149) needed only one point from the two rounds to win. How hard could it be?
Well, this hard:
There's not much to say about this game, it was so one-sided. The lack of opening knowledge on my part allowed white to win straight out of the opening; at my own level, especially at school, I am thought of as something of a walking ECO, but it's all relative, as this shows. On the other hand, I drew my lessons from this game, with fruitful consequences later.
As might be expected, we were 0-4 down at half-time, but the other games were all surprisingly close. Guildford's greater experience eventually prevailed, however. Round 2 was to be a messy affair, with me now on board 2, but at least I got a decent game this time.
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