Anyone for Kriegspiel?

 For the third round of the London Christmas Congress, I was back on the top row of three boards - for some reason this seemed important to me, as a reminder I was still very much in contention. I was paired with black against David Smith (135) - and noted his win and draw against two 150+ opponents the previous day with a little concern. As I guessed from his age, 135 is a low for him - in 2009 he had a rapid grade of 171! I was sure I recognised the name somehow at the time, but only at this very moment has it occured to me that he has for some time been the controller of the SCCU county matches.

 Anyway, Smith followed the usual tradition of taking me out of prep as quickly as possible - on the very first move, in this case. On this occasion though it was definitely a mistake - once again the battle of understanding went my way and for the second time in two days, ...d5 as black in a Najdorf gave me a very good game. But once again I threw it away, and this time quite dramatically. I had to dig in my heels and get some assistance to avoid a crushing defeat - somehow I scrambled to another draw:

 Truly, both players were worthy of each other in this game! A shambolic performance with far too many wins passing both sides by. The defence might argue that in a sharp struggle mistakes are inevitable, and up to a point I agree, but this was woeful. Someone from SGS recently sent me a game to comment on where he was terrified at facing a 138 and being outgraded by almost 30; I stressed that we are all capable of terrible play but somehow didn't think to use this game to prove it!

 As in the previous morning round, it all started so smoothly - I knew what to do and he didn't, and since it's a Sicilian that could only result in ...d5 being achieved pretty quickly. Once again white played passively, and he is being pushed back into a corner on the Queenside - 18... Bb5?? looked like such a nice way to take advantage. The problem was a simple tactical refutation, whereas a more restrained build-up with ...Rac8, a move so obvious I didn't see it, would have soon won.

 After that, the game becomes rather hard to explain. I tried my best to set problems but 19. Nxe6! just destroys the co-ordination of my position - everything is hanging all of a sudden, even after he blandly took my Rook on f8 rather than winning at once with 20. Nd4!. But white kept on missing the best moves, before 28. c4?? threw away everything. Then I relaxed and gave it back again with 30... Na3? and especially 34... Kf8?. Then he returned the favour on the very next move! As so often recently, a draw was the correct result only because neither side deserved to win. At least one can't say my games are dull.

 Why all the blunders then? A combination of factors, I think - laziness ("I have to be winning here"), tiredness ("6am: do I have to get up already?") and simply not seeing moves on my part. For white - perhaps nerves (which would explain also his wet opening play, eg 8. f3, 14. Kh1 and 15. Bc1) as well as an even less enviable commute to Wembley from Essex. Clearly neither player was at their best.

 Though I'm required to write at rather unusual times, I'm pleased to find myself half-way through this tournament before my exams have even started. The tournament itself, however, now took a sharp turn for the worse.