But since I spent most of the week doing work I didn't have much opportunity to ponder in advance. Nor could I usefully prepare for the first-round game, since we were playing the BCM Rhinos. The British Chess Magazine squad enter a large number of teams and so have a very long list of registered players; I had next to no chance of guessing correctly so didn't really try until the day of the game. At the venue though, pairings are published well in advance and I'd brought my laptop, so I had a short window when I discovered that I had black against Alexander Stille (187/2045).
I was on board 5, and overall we were clearly underdogs as predicted: 186-188, e180-184, 180-180, 158-194, 159-187, 152-181. Given the match situation, my own taste and what I could see that he played, I had no qualms about trying another King's Indian Defence. For once, I got the line I was expecting, but walked into that other occupational hazard when so comfortably outgraded: just being outplayed.
It turned out surprisingly close in the end: LWWDLL, so 2.5-3.5. Even so, I couldn't be too disappointed about this loss, rather unusually. It was a sharp struggle in which my opponent displayed superior understanding and was rewarded. I didn't spoil the game with any one-move calamities (at least not until the position was already gone) and I felt I had managed to get my kind of position on the board. A number of my losses in previous months have come from getting rather depressing positions early on and never quite getting into the game, but this time it was an unbalanced position with chances for both sides and ultimately I finished second. C'est la vie.
What went wrong? I suspect I still have much to learn about this sort of position; giving a solitary game a look with an outdated version of Fritz doesn't do justice to such a complex battleground. Lots of rather concrete variations show up throughout; a sharp contrast to my at times almost lackadaisical play in the summer. Despite playing book right up to move 16 (something else I'm happy with - at least I understand where the pieces are meant to go!) the resulting position didn't quite seem satisfactory. 12... Nf4 doesn't entirely convince me as an earlier improvement so I may venture 6... Nc6 next time, although that doesn't look very exciting! Stille plays this line all the time so I suppose it's only natural that he should get something out of the opening. That's perhaps the best lesson to draw from this game - knowledge is power!
Of the middlegame, I would do well to remember my old mantra of active pieces - it resurfaced when I won my first two games of the term in October, but then disappeared. Positionally, black's foundations are not altogether sound (or so it seems to me) so dynamic measures are in order. This is best illustrated by the variations around moves 17-19: it's not easy even for an engine to pick its way through the mess that can arise, but it seems black is always able to set white problems. As the game showed nicely, if he cannot then white will eventually unwind and slip in through the cracks. I sensed the choice of capture on e5 was important, but went wrong; probably that was the last chance to stay in the game; instead white clamps down on my counterplay and my artificial attempts to drum some up fell short. Most conspicuously on the theme of active pieces, I never did solve the problem of my a6 Knight, from which square it is still forlornly looking on in the final position.
So I lost, but it is permitted to lose to a 187 with black. My game on Sunday was rather more of a disappointment.
PS: This is blog post number 200. I suppose there are more memorable ways to bring up the double-century, but at least it was an interesting game...
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