Punishing a poor plan

 This weekend I played on the bottom board for Bristol 1 in the British Universities Championship, a 5-round tournament for 4-board teams in the upmarket surroundings of Upland House in High Wycombe. Certainly, their rooms and meals were rather more enjoyable than the journey - I now know that a 1990s Ford Fiesta can't take a passenger behind the driver if the latter happens to be 6' 3"! But aches aside, we made it to the venue on time, unlike some of the teams from further north, and, as opposed to our more social second and third teams (a point of pride - Bristol were the only university to send three teams) were seriously hoping to challenge for the top places, seeded 6th of 17.

 The time control - 1 hour for all moves + 10 seconds per move - seems quite fast for so prestigious a tournament, but in the first round it was a blessing for most: if I may be permitted a rather sweeping generalisation, the competitive half of the tournament was paired with the social half, and the results were predictable. We faced Swansea, and with the exception of board 1 outgraded them comprehensively, 187-170, 180-e105, 168-e100, 162-e75. My opponent was Christian Natividad, estimated at 75, who played in this competition last year. Then he was playing a Reti, which I've never done spectacularly against, but nonetheless I hoped to be able to hack my way to a full point if needs be. As it happened, and perhaps not surprisingly, tactical awareness sufficed:

 A satisfactory start; we never seemed to be in any danger anywhere after winning on board 2 inside 10 minutes, and eventually cruised to DWWW. Perhaps there is not so much to say about this game, which is hardly an advert for systemic opening lines - white put his pieces where they belong in a King's Indian Attack, but apparently didn't know what to do after that. Thus he embarked on the rash plan of aiming to push his f-pawn, a weakening scheme that is decisively punished by 14... Nh5!, after which the famed and feared 'Dragon Bishop' soon made its mark on proceedings, bagging me my first Queen win from the opening in this tournament. It wouldn't be the last...

 However, I cannot finish without making a brief reference to the nerves I had from move 26 or so - such is my fear of losing that I managed to imagine some mating nets for white's Knights and Bishop. It is bad to give up the dark-squared Bishop, but usually a Queen is quite enough compensation for it! There was never anything for white at all provided black exercises even the slightest degree of caution, but the anxiety slowed me down considerably. This practical issue with my game has been around forever, but I still need to try and deal with it.

 Round two was a very different affair indeed, as we found ourselves paired with top seeds, and defending champions, Edinburgh.