Oedipus strikes again

 Sunday morning, the final day of the e2e4 Torquay Congress, dawned with me drawn to play white against Peter Jaszkiwskyj (178 / 1968) with both sides on 1/3. He is a friend of one of the other players from Bristol University who went to this tournament, and as such I discovered that he had been giving custom to the Torquay drinking establishments into the small hours the night before. Such is how one is able to score two wins on the final day...

 This time, I knew what colour I had and prepared properly (this was the first time I ever took my laptop to a tournament; a wise decision.) Having succeeded with my usual direct approach in round 3, it seemed sensible to try the same thing again now, especially given how the majority of his losses occur: direct King attacks! (The interested reader is encouraged to look up Hebden - Jaszkiwskyj, e2e4 West Brom Open Jan. 2013, and Gordon-Brown - Jaszkiwskyj, 4NCL Nov. 2012 for two of the more spectacular examples.)

 My university colleague says that he is generally a solid positional player. Doubtless he wasn't entirely satisfied, therefore, to be confronted by a King's Gambit! He mishandled the position in a way that makes the above losses unsurprising, and soon my position was completely overwhelming. But it was not to be - a series of imprecisions turned the position to a losing one, and although I wriggled and squirmed, the game was too far gone when my attack ran of steam:

 To lose such a game! If you asked me to construct my dream position (excepting tactical shots and material inequality, obviously) then it would look remarkably like that which arises in this game after 13... Nh7. White gained a huge centre, two raking Bishops, and an open f-file, whilst black's pieces were driven to passivity on the Queenside. Doubtless Steinitz would point out at this juncture that the best way to refute a gambit is to accept it; 2... Bc5 has a good enough reputation but set me no problems whatsoever here.

 But white's game, impressive though it certainly is (14. d5! is almost +2, and the possible continuation I gave in the notes seems most convincing) rests on shaky foundations - the c1 Bishop participates in the attack by preparing to sacrifice itself on h6, but it hems in the a1 Rook and thus leaves the back-rank vulnerable. The d-pawn is backward and on an open file, which made me lose my cool a little when I was forced to sacrifice it, even though things were still OK. As such, after 17. Qg6? I think white is lost, not won as I briefly allowed myself to dream. When the pressure was exhausted, the development problems (I seem to have a weakness for the Queen's Bishop... no wonder I've been looking sympathetically at the Trompowsky again recently!) were the root of my demise. No matter how good a position I get given, I have an annoying habit of finding a way to mess it up.

 My final opponent was unrated, and as such I managed the depressing feat of losing points off an Elo rating that's already 200 or so down on what it should be. The main problem is just that there are not that many tournaments that are FIDE-rated, and of those that are, many are Opens and so I'm likely to not score very well.

 But reflection is for the next post. In the meantime, I had one more game at this tournament.