How soon six months pass! It doesn't seem all that long ago that I was reporting the results of my previous spreadsheet dump, but here we are and the January grading list is almost upon us (allegedly next weekend, but no-one really knows.) I've done the first of my exams now, and with a few days until the other two I'm using a lull to write up the latest offering from Excel.
Obviously, my tone has been rather subdued for most of the grading period. Indeed it is rather surprising to discover that I made a plus score in my 27 slowplay games (+9 =12 -6) and held a tough string of rapidplay opponents over 19 games (+8 =3 -8.) But with a mean slowplay opponent of 146.6, I would have hoped for more. Interestingly at both speeds I had much tougher opponents with black: 141.7/151.1 for slowplay, and 143.9/165.9 for rapidplay.* Nevertheless, my results with white were only slightly better: +10 =3 -8 versus +6 =12 -6.
After intending solid openings with both colours, I soon reverted to sharp stuff with black as a (ahem) control variable. But 12 of my 15 draws came with black! With white I played a lot: only the English** (6) and Caro-Kann (3, in a list for which I 'gave up' KP openings!) appeared more than twice. Sample sizes are small, but the 177 English performance (+4 =1 -1) stands out. The surprising culprit for most of the split points (+3 =6 -1) is black in the Sicilian, though the Slav, Caro-Kann and Grünfeld took only 5 games to give up the other 4.
As for the draws, the frequency of offers has only increased a little (from 18/52 = 0.35/game, to 20/46 = 0.43/game) - but 75% were accepted rather than 55.6%! I made 11 of the 20 offers (up from half) and only 2 were declined, by a 177 and a 200 who both won. That 81.8% acceptance rate is almost doubled from the previous list! I declined 3 of the 9 received (down 11.1%) and went on to win all 3 games (vs. 153, 138 and 125 opponents.) Predictably, it was usually the lower-graded player offering a draw - the 4 exceptions were all me.
That inability to win is reflected in results. Hitherto I could boast a fearsome hit rate against lower-graded opponents, but not this time: though with an advantage of 30+ I dropped nothing, with an advantage of 10-19 I scored a shocking 42.9% (+1 =4 -2) - in large part, a reflection of my tournament travails. On the other hand I could trip up stronger foes this time; my +1 =1 -2 in the -30 to -39 bracket was encouraging. Game length made little difference this time, with two exceptions: in 30-39 move games I scored only +2 =3 -5 (a 126.7 performance) and in games of under 20 moves, I scored +3 =1 -0 (179.)
My progress in endgames continues - often it was the only way to get results, and despite all the draws my drive to win remains undimmed. I had plus scores with all pieces, and this time could handle N vs B (+2 =1 -0) as well as B vs N (+1 =1 -0.) Overall I had a satisfactory +8 =7 -4, but there was a fly in the ointment. If I picked up a pawn somewhere in the course of the ending, then all well and good - but I came into it with an extra pawn 4 times and could only win once.
Before I get to grade guessing, one interesting observation: in evening league games I performed at 171.5 (+6 =6 -1) but in slowplay congresses, including 4NCL, only 140.2 (+3 =6 -5.) Maybe being a humanities student helps in the evening leagues? Anyway, I could only perform at 155 from my 27 slowplay games; the countback to the Steve Boniface helps a bit but 157 is the best I can hope for. Rapid gave me a 149 performance, but this time reaching back to the Surrey Congress Rapidplay is terrible news for me and 144 is what my spreadsheet expects. There are a few juniors to confuse the issue but I'm likely to dip again for the grade that matters. My target for the July list is to hit 170 - if I could extend my league form elsewhere that would be no problem!
That appears to wrap up my coverage of this grading period - I'll report my new grades in passing when the list comes out and then it's straight back into the games! The first one is in the Bristol League, when we play South Bristol B on the 30th.
* Though the latter figure is distorted: I've ignored the 40-point rule here, and I had black in all 3 of my games against 200+ opponents (including a 249 GM) at the 4NCL Rapidplay weekend.
** Playing the Q-side openings introduces another complication: how to deal with all the transpositions? By 'English' I discount games that started 1. c4 but transposed into, say, a Grünfeld or Catalan. That leaves a Jaenisch Gambit, a Reversed Closed Sicilian, three Symmetricals and an English vs. QGD formation.
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