Gatecrasher

 Last Monday, I had a game for Castles in the CCF Superleague - always one to look forward to. Unlike my previous two games this season, this one really was a league game, rather than a knockout. In one sense it was only a formality - with far and away the strongest squad, we had won all our other league fixtures and only needed to avoid a team default in this fifth and final match to win. On the other hand, when you only need one more victory for a clean sweep (our second in three years) who wouldn't want to go for it?

 Interestingly, this was the first time ever in this league I wasn't playing on the top board; on my tenth outing I found myself on board 2. Not that I was complaining - it meant yet another white! Our opponents were our closest pursuers, The Team With No Name, and we had a big plus on grades: 174-152, 156-146, 153-119, 123-102; my opponent was Nigel Norman, who held me to a draw in August. But this time I could determine the nature of the game - finally coming up with a sharp response to the ...dxe4 French lines, I was more comfortable than my opponent and able to take advantage:

 So our season was crowned with a 2.5-1.5 win (DWWL), making us the only team across the three divisions to win all of their league matches. Next season we will be back up in the top tier, and hopefully able to establish ourselves this time. But that's for the future. Neither of my previous appearances made any difference to the match result, and this match wasn't really crucial either - my team-mates have put in most of the leg-work, but I was there for more than credit by association! And this time the result did hinge on my board. So it was a good moment to chip in with a third win from three.

 Ostensibly, this might seem like quite a simple game: black gets into a passive position from the opening, overlooks a few tactics and resigns before move 30. I'd say the opening was a success, despite it not being exactly what I expected - the acid test is whether you can get positions that you like, and this time I succeeded. However, I was never so sure at the time, and my attacking technique was a little uncertain; I used up oceans of time between moves 15 and 20 trying to find the right way, and ended up with Rooks positioned weirdly at g1 and h4 for my troubles. I was being very one-dimensional, and not giving any consideration to the more positional treatments involving h6 and pressure down the e-file. I only wanted to attack! Still, at least one can't say I was being cagey as against Harris, and Fritz is much happier with my play than I was over the board.

 So, the best way to bounce back from my previous slowplay game. However, for grading purposes I needed more games to reach 30 by the end of June, and that meant facing up to another congress. I was back at CCF a few days later for their Easter tournament. However, over the next week I am writing up my project (5000 words) so you might have to wait a little while...