It wasn't brilliant news then that I was forced to finally abandon my policy of being a reserve for home matches and put myself in the firing line. (Don't forget our matches and socials are on different days; we can't just pick someone up as needed.) I'm still not quite sure whether it was the magnanimous desire to be a punching bag, wanting to play a near-190, a boost in confidence or guilt about my B-team appearance, but I decided to stick myself above two 160s and play on board 4 this time. In theory that meant I could play a 188 if they had a full team out, but I didn't believe it would happen: he hadn't played any away matches yet and he was only there on account of poor form that looked to be on the mend. But it did! They had a good team that left us slight underdogs solely on account of my board: 196-198, e190-185, 186-182, 159-188, 165-164, 160-169.
I had white against Stephen Dilleigh, who went on a fine run over the summer but seems to have settled back to normal. Indeed his league season hasn't been good by his standards and he's fallen a long way from his habitual board 1. For the most part, his play is extremely solid, so I thought I may have chances of getting something out of it - leaving aside the fact that I'm pathologically incapable of playing for a draw! He has a lot of experience of weekender tournaments though, and to thrive in that environment it's essential to be able to beat the bunnies with both colours. Just like in this game: the opening was a bit of an own-goal and left me on the back foot from very early on; despite a grim rear-guard action I missed my best chances to survive and was eventually worn down.
This only finished twenty minutes from the end of the 3-hour playing session, but it was the second game to finish, after a very quick draw on the top board. It had looked good for us for some time; unusually it was our turn to fall foul of the blitz-finish, but we nevertheless had the last laugh and ran out 3.5-2.5 winners (DWDLWD.) So we're only 3 points behind South Bristol and 1 behind Clifton at the half-way mark: everything to play for! Thanks to the January exam period we won't be playing again until the very end of January, so that gap will probably widen shortly.
So I was the only casualty - and with it my unbeaten run in the league. In some ways it was a burden; perhaps I can play with a little more freedom in the second half of the season. There's no shame in losing to Dilleigh, who played well, though certainly not perfectly: 22... Rc7?! and 26... Qe8? gave me unnecessary opportunities, and if we believe Fritz then 15... Nd6?! was also not the best. At least I was in the game, even if I was never pushing for anything. Typical that on a rare occasion when I get a line I was expecting, I don't concentrate and allow myself to be move-ordered! The position after 4... e5 isn't objectively all that bad - it's the blow to my confidence that is more serious. And only 28. Nb1? counts as a really serious mistake - before that, it was just a string of inaccurate moves that got me in trouble. But sometimes that's all it takes...
After this, I had a hectic couple of days: the Friday was my last day of term at Bristol with two seminars thrown in, I had to rush from my accommodation to the train station, and finally got in at 11pm. Then I went to bed at 1 and got up at 7 to go to the London Chess Classic for a day! I managed to play a game as a filler on that day, which is next up to be blogged.
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