Winning by wanting

 In my previous post I mentioned that I didn't know where I would be playing next - the answer came from an unexpected quarter. Whilst the Bristol University A-team has been gamely clinging on near the top of Division One in the Bristol League, our mostly-social B-team has continued to accumulate wins and is very much in the fight for Divison 4. I never mentioned it here because I judged it irrelevant - even if they occasionally had difficult matches, I still didn't want to play and didn't expect to do so. But evidently our B-team captain has refined his approach - put the team together very late, ask me the night before with only half a team, and be glad that the opposition are top of the table and usually put out relatively strong opposition on the top board. Very reluctantly then, I agreed to play another match this evening. What is the saying? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice...

 This even in spite of having to make a not inconsiderable journey to play Thornbury B away. By grades, I felt it ought to be close: 159-138, 104-110, e100-80, e75-e100. But clearly, with white and a healthy grading advantage, it would be necessary to go for the win against James Nichols (138). Playing to win hasn't been a strong suit of mine lately, but finally I made a good fist of it here, even if it wasn't my best game by any stretch. In some ways it was a fairly typical grinding down of a lower-graded player: I pursued an imbalanced, perhaps not altogether correct, line of play, kept setting small problems and despite never having that much, persistence and a positive mindset eventually caused him to lose his cool:

 A handy 3-1 victory (WLWW) that puts the B-team top of its division, and my first slowplay win since mid-October. Given the circumstances I couldn't quite bring myself to trumpet the latter fact on the club website though! Presently my league performance is 171 from 7 games - the only thing sustaining what has for the most part been a train-wreck of a half-season.

 Though the exceptions are proving more and more frequent, I am still trying to stick to things that aren't 1. e4, and this time I wound up in a Queen's Gambit Declined for the first time - something so sterile that I've usually tried to sidestep into a Catalan, but my early Nc3 did for that possibility. The closed position that resulted seemed to suit me very well (perhaps surprisingly) - at least, I felt I played with a constant plan in mind without getting too diverted. The conception starting with c5 is quite a deep one for me (though it is a novelty in that position, I don't claim originality - I was inspired partly by a recent Jeremy Silman article on Chess.com) and even if it is not the best, certainly produced an interesting struggle.

 My chief observations about the game are psychological however. It reiterates the power of a positive mindset - despite some dire results lately I came into this game hopeful of winning, and played rather better, without the recent tactical oversights and mental lapses. If form is really just a manifestation of confidence, it explains why I am so prone to going on long runs of very good/bad results. I managed to strike the delicate balance between viewing my position optimistically (not something I do often; normally I am preoccupied by imaginary opposition ideas) whilst remaining objective - I didn't take any undue risks and I don't think black ever had any serious chance to play for an advantage. Black had several paths to the split point in the ending (though I still think white should have something to play with on move 26!) but my persistence and will-power proved enough to provoke the immediately terminal sacrifice on c5. That, or the more mundane explanation that I was playing faster and Thornbury needed him to win. Either way, it was a fight again!

 Hopefully then this unsought boost can carry into Thursday, when I am playing the A-team's final match of the term. After that it looks as though I will be able to make the Castles match on Monday - things might be starting to look up...