With 10 teams in a 7-round Swiss, some rather spectacular downfloats were the order of the day, and hence we played one of the lower mid-table teams. This showed in the rather one-sided grade line-up, even if our opponents, "Chesslea," were missing some people. That line-up was 144-120, 153-94, 120-78, 103-48. I was on board 1, playing Scott Freeman, who is the main organiser at CCF and must take a great deal of credit for the great successes his club has enjoyed over the last few years, and the size it has now reached. Although at 120, he is the highest graded player in his squad, he is usually too busy with admin to play much, and so he is rather rusty; he may be stronger than that when playing well, and scores good results on the rare occasions he does play. Nonetheless, I wanted to finish the season with a win, especially as the match looked rather predictable elsewhere, and although in the early stages I did not have things all my own way, in the end I was not to be denied.
So I fulfilled my wish - a win to conclude, and a 4-0 victory for the team that set the seal on a fantastic season. I only regret that I won't be able to play (much) next year because of university! This match bears a curious resemblance to our season-opener, which was played just before I started this blog - there too, my opponent arrived late, played the London System, came out a piece down in a tactical melee and lost, giving Castles a 4-0 victory.
Interestingly, at the time of writing this remains my most recent longplay game. Needless to say, the explanation for this is the looming prospect of final A-Level exams starting later this month, which will curtail my playing activity even further until late June. But I have played some rapid games in the interim, with mixed outcomes, and they will hopefully follow shortly, albeit with the sparse annotations that a shortage of time requires.
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