The first game back was on Thursday in the Bristol League, against South Bristol B. They were bottom of the table and are finding life tough after winning promotion last season; though our team was not at full strength we had to be considered favourites: 197-185, 194-169, 164-158, 156-*182, 160-148, 160-138. Nevertheless we were out of practice, and it is often after a long layoff that I am most prone to time trouble (perhaps it stuck in my mind so clearly before the game because it has led to unfortunate reverses in the past - see here and here.) My opponent on board 4, to my surprise given his form, was Sam Gower; though ungraded his 6 games in the first half of the season gave him a 182 performance. This was an especially important game for me since it was my first white since I gave up the Queenside openings experiment - a win would be useful to draw a line under it, and regain my confidence.
My new 1. e4 repertoire is based around a fundamental contradiction in my play: I like, and do best in, positions where I can play actively, but I often underestimate the importance of dynamic factors in a position relative to statics. Correcting this is one of my two main goals at present, alongside putting more effort into calculating at the board. This first outing did seem to go quite well: for my standards, I played the middlegame extremely accurately after both sides stumbled through the opening. Some smooth play left me with a clear extra pawn, but then my endgame play left me scratching my head:
An annoying outcome, but it was our only laudable result as we crashed to a 2-4 loss without winning a game: LDDDDL. A draw with a 182 is a good start to the season, and I was definitely in the box seats throughout. That said I don't think his play measured up to his earlier results: his opening play was too casual to threaten white with any difficulties, 20... Rhe8? is a critical tactical oversight, and though the endgame was a calamity from both sides 45... Rf4? stands out as particularly careless.
I am pleased with my middlegame play: aggressive without going overboard. But the endgame is frustrating. For one thing, I missed a succession of easy wins, of which 54. Rf7+ is particularly obvious.* At the heart of the problem is that I'm not able to speedily evaluate an endgame position so have to rely on calculation. This isn't a problem in itself for simple positions - but it is slow, and since adjournments have been all-but Darwinised it is a rare luxury to get into an ending with ample time to play it. More depressing for me is that I was impressed with my endgame play in the previous half-season; take away the lifeless middlegame play and my newly-found endgame competence disappears with it! Perhaps, as one of our stronger players suggested, it is attitudinal: at that time I was prepared to go into an ending as the logical conclusion of my game-plan, but now it's an unwelcome contingency again. Though note that even in the previous half-season, I very rarely won endings that I entered into with a material advantage.
But such is the way. One of the few chess books I took to Bristol with me for this academic year was Rook Endings by Levenfish and Smyslov, but I never made much of a start on it; for now it's just there on the shelf for me to guiltily see out of the corner of my eye. In the meantime our next league game is very close, only 5 days after this one - hopefully such an embarrasing reverse as this one can generate a response, which doesn't bode well for our opponents Downend B...
* It's true that I was in time trouble by this stage (a problem that didn't plague me as in the above-cited examples... that or black played slowly enough to disguise the problem!) and also that since I had to reconstruct after getting home, the moves may not be entirely accurate. But I think they are, and even if not the mistakes are instructive enough to merit publication.
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