The first half of the 2012-13 slowplay grading season was neatly bookended for me, since it ended as it started - not with a bye, but with a game against Anantha Anilkumar Snr., ECF grade 81 and FIDE rating 1369. Let me say right away that I have great respect for him - a sincere and highly enthusiastic man, very supportive of any junior player and especially his quickly-improving son, as well as the only person I saw all weekend who was genuinely apologetic about the awful noise level coming from the parents' room carelessly placed next door to this section. But it was perhaps a bit too adventurous to enter the Open section, even for experience - if the gap in strength is too large, one doesn't learn at all.
Nonetheless, our earlier game had felt difficult for a time, even with the white pieces, and this time I had black. So I was ready for a challenging game once more. Perhaps I have improved a lot from my rusty August incarnation however, as it was rather more one-sided this time:
The reader will recall from the previous post that I anticipated, irrespective of the opponent, this game would be nasty, brutish and short, one way or the other. Indeed it was, despite lasting 53 moves, for it took only just over 90 minutes to complete. White violated principles in the opening - don't make multiple moves with one piece; don't make too many pawn moves; get the King to safety; complete development before attacking... - and didn't escape to the middlegame alive. Perhaps it was a little merciful to 'only' trade rapidly down to an ending up a Bishop and a pawn, but even at brisk pace and armed with my endgame technique, it was straightforward to bring it to a conclusion. So 2.5/6 in an Open, which for someone whose grade isn't yet officially over 150 is not be sniffed at.
Curiously, having suffered all half-season long from a crisis of confidence when playing black, I scored 2.5/3 with black (performance 189!) but lost all three of my white games. But no alarmist remedial action is really needed - I played a 203 for the first, forgot theory in the second, and should have won the third hands-down.
The last time I entered an Open, at a Richmond Rapidplay in the summer of 2011, things did not go well; I scored 1.5/6 with a bye and a 9-move draw with a friend. But even then, I saw some promising signs - I could establish winning positions against 160s (I was 121 at the time) just not hold onto them for any length of time before blundering in time trouble. This time, I was competitive in at least 5 of my games, and definitely held my own. Of course, in future I might sometimes even be forced into Opens (for e2e4 the Major limit is U-160; for the Bristol congresses U-155) but based on this I would have no problem playing in the top section as a matter of course. Thus I look forward to the Surrey Easter Congress, and before that the e2e4 Torquay Congress in February, which I might be able to go to. Of course, plenty of chess is to come before that; I might squeeze in a game or two in Surrey before my return to Bristol, where the first University league game is slated for the 16th January.
The only thing that remains for chess in 2012 is my famed and feared spreadsheet dump, complete with always-woeful attempt to predict my grade (the Bristol League website claims they're due out on roughly the 24th January... we'll see.) I'll return with that in a few days, after a visit to my grandparents in Devon. Until then it's a case of onwards and upwards, and happy new year!
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