Born free

 Round 4 saw me drawn for the second time against Ilya Iyengar, of ECF grade 179 and FIDE rating 2017. I played him at the Gigafinal, and though I lost it was by no means a one-sided game. Something else that was in my favour was that, thanks to a former Castles club-mate and his copy of ChessBase, I was able to prepare a little for him (thanks David.) It was more psychological than anything, since I saw no games where he'd faced the second move in the game below, but I shouldn't be surprised.

 Still, the opening was not entirely comfortable for me, as I ended up in a very passive state - not my thing at all, as attested for both good and ill by the first two rounds of this tournament. However, white was not incisive enough and I was able to break my bonds; by the end my draw offer was perhaps even a touch generous:

 In case I somehow failed to make it clear in the annotations, I loathed my position after 11 moves - I just couldn't see how black could play constructively. And yet compare that with the end position! White definitely went wrong somewhere, but I'm not sure exactly where - 19. Nh4 is the obvious candidate, but even the alternatives given by the engine don't seem as good as they should be. Certainly, only black can be better by the end, which was only move 23.

 Overall, my defence in this game to rescue a difficult situation was pretty good. I fell far behind on the clock, but soon turned that around too, and certainly earnt the half-point. Unfortunately, in the next game I most certainly did not get what I earnt.