This was Division 3, for which the grade limit is 500 over 4 boards (Division 2 is 625, and Division 1 is unrestricted) - as someone playing at around 165 I was surprised to find myself only on board 2, and expecting a big grading advantage since our opponents, CCF's C-team, fielded only a 101 on board 2 in their sole previous match. Thus it was most uncomfortable for me to discover that actually I had a grading advantage of exactly zero - my opponent was the 149-graded junior Koby Kalavannan. It's true that I had much the better of our meeting last year, when I let him off with a draw pretty much solely because doing so won Castles the CCF Superleague title, but juniors improve fast and I always dislike facing people multiple times, in case they are ready for my openings or general style.
Still, I did get white (though that's been a questionable blessing in the last month!), and with the overall grade line-up - ours first - 163-156, 149-149, e75-74, e60-67, a close match seemed likely, making this an important game. After springing a surprise in the opening only to be surprised straight back, I was never quite at ease, but with a brisk time control it was predictable that both sides lost their way in a race to move 30. Nonetheless I emerged in a completely winning position and appropriately executed the coup de gracé on move 31...:
As predicted, an important game, as we won 2.5-1.5 (LWWD) - although only the very one-sided game on top board (won in fact by a former Wallington club member! So a good night for mercenaries...) finished before it, this was the least clear game of the night, and board 4 should have been a win for us if not for time trouble and fatigue. But anyway, a win is a win, and my fleeting intervention has lifted us up to 2nd in the table.
It occurred to me only recently that my approach to the openings has changed since I started playing seriously in early 2010. Initially, I played as any conscientious junior does and spewed out the main-lines of everything, happily playing the Ruy Lopez, Classical French/Caro-Kann, Open Sicilian, Najdorf, King's Indian Defence et cetera. But over time, with a couple of exceptions, I've drifted towards lazier anti-book lines - King's Gambit, Grand Prix Attack, Fantasy Variation and so forth. So it was nice to make a return to something approaching a theoretically-important variation and win in the process. As usual for this time control, there were some hairy moments before the control... but curiously, once again my lack of time seemed to cause my opponent more problems than it did me. The plan of aiming for e5 was not as strong as I thought, and black had good chances for Queenside counterplay against d3 if he'd found ...a5 and ...Ba6. Instead, my primitive but energetic gestures on the Kingside provoked mistakes that seem decisive, although the computer seems slow to grasp this.
Despite the result, I was very pleased to hear from his father afterwards that he took and passed the Sutton Grammar entrance test a few months ago, and will hopefully be attending as of next academic year. SGS was recently named the most oversubscribed school in London (13 applicants per place!) so no mean feat! Our chess teams are losing even more players this year, including our two strongest players (boards 2 and 4 last season) so it will be good to have such a strong prospect for the future. For now though, the old dog can still prevail over the young pretender. As a matter of fact I was also the most experienced player on Wallington's team despite being youngest. It's a hard life being a chess-player; eighteen years old and already a grizzled veteran!
My next match is later today, again for Wallington, in the Stoneleigh Trophy. With the grade handicap system still in operation I am a valuable asset, so here's hoping I can do better than I did in the competition for Castles last season...
PS: As an aside, the annotations above, quite bulky by my standards, benefited greatly from our post-mortem; it's always helpful to know what the opponent is thinking, and there were more lines I could have added. Don't forget engines only point out the best moves - it takes a human operator to dig out the critical but flawed alternatives! It's a shame that few people are enthusiastic about post-mortems nowadays. So if you ever do find yourself playing me, in most circumstances I would be delighted to have a look afterwards.
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