WARNING: If you only want to see chess moves, please skip this post.
The previous game consigned the 2011-12 season to history. I shall soon be moving onto the 102nd Richmond Rapidplay, but first I have decided to present some interesting (to me anyway!) data I've put together. Few things are more dangerous than a bored person with an Excel spreadsheet! The below concerns only slowplay chess, not rapidplay.
First, it seems that my belief that I'm cursed with colour distribution is true; from 95 slowplay games over the 13-month season (a long story - it's a consequence of the ECF switching to 6-monthly grading lists) I had 44 whites and 51 blacks, and never more than 2 consecutive whites. I had two runs of 4 consecutive blacks, and at one point in February I had 7 blacks in a row!
Overall, I scored +41 =31 -23, for a total score of 59%. This can be reduced to +18 =16 -10 with white (59%) and +23 =15 -13 (60%) with black. I performed at 146 over the whole 13 months with white, rather than 144 with black, despite the lower score, suggesting that, to compound the misery, on the comparatively rare occasions when I did get the white pieces, I also got stronger opponents. My longest consecutive run of losses was only 3, of draws 5, and of wins 6.
I had some notable results in certain openings. Any semi-careful reader of the blog knows that I treat the French as borderline unsound for black, yet I scored 'only' +6 =3 -4 against it (although of these, the Rubinstein Variation contributes +0 =3 -1.) As white in 1. e4 e5, I accumulated +3 =3 -4; the Scotch and Vienna gave all of the wins, whilst the King's Gambit was worth only +0 =0 -3, and the Ruy Lopez +0 =2 -1. If my opponent met 1. e4 with a c-pawn move, I would be looking good - I managed +5 =4 -2 against the Sicilian, and +2 =2 -0 against the Caro-Kann.
With black, one thing leaps out immediately, and I wasn't conscious of it during the season: I scored a mammoth +14 =4 -3 with the Sicilian Defence. This constitutes 41% of my games with black! I had fine scores playing the Benko Gambit (+2 =1 -0) and when meeting the London/Colle complex (+3 =1 -0) although in the case of the latter, none of the white players were graded above 120. I took up the Caro-Kann and Dutch with some regularity mid-way through the season, and managed an equal score with both (+2 =2 -2 and +1 =1 -1 respectively).
Draw offers are an interesting aspect of psychology in chess. Over the season, I made 37 draw offers, of which 23 were accepted. I received 16 draw offers, and accepted 8 of them. So almost three quarters of draws in my games were on my initiative! I find that startling. Of the offers I made, 21 were to opponents graded at least 10 points above me, of which 12 were accepted (57%), 10 to opponents within 10 points of which 8 accepted (80%) and 5 to opponents at least 10 points below me, of which 3 were taken (60%). In the games where those offers were declined, I scored +0 =3 -5 when outgraded by at least 10, +0 =2 -0 when grades were within 10, and +0 =0 -2 when outgrading by at least 10. Of the offers received, 4 were from opponents graded at least 10 above me, of which I accepted 3 (75%), 3 were from opponents graded within 10 points and all were accepted, and 9 were from opponents graded at least 10 below, of which 2 (22%) were accepted. In the games where offers were declined, I drew the one game against a player at least 10 points above me, and won all four games against players at least 10 points below me. Make of that what you will, but it seems many players are perhaps too grade-conscious!
Lastly, before this post degenerates from mildly interesting to just sad, I shall move onto grading performance. As I mentioned earlier, across the season in its entirety I performed at 146 with white and 144 with black, for an overall 145. That can be split into 2011 and 2012 - in the first half, I managed 139 with white and 141 with black, for 140 overall; bearing in mind that one won game was submitted late, the 5 point junior bonus I got explains the 144 grade I currently have. Then in the second half, I performed at 153 with white and 147 with black, for 150 overall, using my 139 grade (remember the 5-point junior increment is taken away from me!) as the 40-point rule marker. With a little bit of a bonus from increasing junior grades, I'm going to guess at a 151 grade, but having run the junior iteration process by hand, I am rather annoyed to notice that if I were a junior for one year longer, I would be wading into battle with a grade of 162!! It's amazing how much impact can be made by this process (which is explained here if you're unfamiliar with it.)
And now back to chess...
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