Gift-wrapped

 On Tuesday, I was back in Hanham, against on board 2 for the B-team, in almost the same team. On this occasion, we faced their A-team, which is in fact not very much stronger than their B-team in view of some creative 'zig-zagging' with regards to their player registrations. For me, it meant black against the 138-graded Steve Woolgar.

 Having glanced at some of his games in the 4NCL on the day of the match, I discovered that he plays the English Opening, which is something I've never managed to settle on a nice reply to. I also felt that he was prone to making odd moves that bordered on inexplicable (actively seeking the exchange of his dark-square Bishop as black in a Grand Prix Attack comes to mind) and didn't respond well to being attacked or forced to calculate. Eventually, therefore, I opted to repeat my usual ...f5 hack line, and despite not playing especially well was able to produce another win:

 We lost the match 2.5-3.5 from grades of 156-142, 149-138, 109-120, 111-104, U-82, U-72 (LWLDDD.) Unfortunate, but there you go. I am rarely wholly satisfied with my victories, and again this one seems to me slightly fortuitous - Bxf6 was often a good antidote for white, and although I saw the crucial ...Nxd4-e2+ idea, I didn't capitalise on it as well as I could have done, and needed to rely on an absurd blunder from my opponent to translate my advantage into something tangible. Even after that, I was rather pessimistic about how much of a bind white had on the Queenside, and it took the blunder of yet more material (38. Nd2?) for a winning method to become apparent. On the bright side, I kept my composure well in time trouble and didn't allow white back into the game following his earlier mistakes. It is also sad that a big attack on the white King never emerged except in some of the variations (especially 20... Rxf3!) but a win is a win, no matter how much help it required.

 The very next day, I got a promotion to the A-team, and was thrown straight in at the deep end.