It was therefore a bit of a surprise to see that my opponent when the pairings were published was in fact a 146. That was as good as it got though. Just as we were sitting down to start the match, their captain casually mentioned that my opponent in fact wouldn't be there. Instead their 1st-team captain was driving across from the Division 1/2 venue to play me. That meant I actually had white against Andrew Baruch (186/2060) - a testament to the strength of the team that they could do this within the board order limits! So the actual line-up was 185-190, 197-187, 176-175, 177-192, 177-175, 156-186. Admittedly it should have been close, but somehow it was anything but.
If the above sounds like a lot of excuse-making, then I suppose it is. Psychologically I was very put out by this, and I did not play at all well. It seemed hardly right to wander out of the playing hall and get my laptop out when the game was technically ongoing and my opponent could arrive at any moment, so I walked into battle completely unarmed.* Worse, the opening played was one that I very rarely encounter, and I simply had no idea what to do. Of course my opponent did know, and so it was a very simple job for him to take me apart:
We were not favourites, but it was surprising to lose 1-5 (LLDDLL). Therefore as a team we didn't make 50% in the end, scoring 10 points from 22 and finishing 36th of 63 teams. But it was a decent season all in all, and hopefully we'll be back next season.
Anyway, I promised to talk about something beyond calculation, and this time it is strategy that comes under the microscope. As I mentioned recently, last summer I read Silman's book The Amateur's Mind and seemed to gain something big from it, only to turn to How to Reassess Your Chess and be reminded that chess is hard. As this game shows, I still have much to learn - I had no idea what I was doing! It's shocking how easily and consistently I get passive positions in such circumstances through aesthetic but pointless moves, as in my game against Zhou. Partly this is through lack of familiarity with the opening line played - but only partly. My choice of 8. dxe5 was optimistic if nothing else - certainly it requires precise play that was not forthcoming. I didn't know where my pieces would go, hence Nbd2 and Ba2. My belief that Bg5 was pointless doomed that piece to spectating until it was too late. Worst of all was my idea of lashing out with c4 to disrupt the Knight. This was far too 'angry' a move, wilfully giving up my influence on the d-file. With passive pieces and positional weaknesses, it is quite natural that white's game fell apart soon afterwards - the only surprise being that I had ways to avoid the worst of the damage, which I of course missed. Supposedly a bad plan is better than no plan. I was only ever reacting to what black was doing, and in that sense I did not have anything overarching. Reliance on short-range operations - 'well, I need to get my Queenside developed too' allowed black to take over.
Perhaps that is enough self-criticism for one week. One reader suggested I'm far too harsh on myself, but you have to be objective! In the last game there were at least some positives but this one was awful. The weekend came at a good time; as the recent posts have shown I have a clear idea of the many things I need to work on, and also several months to address them. After this came a pause for a few weeks to get my exam out of the way but that's done and later today I go home. After saying recently that I will virtually give up tournaments, the first thing I have done to celebrate is enter a tournament. But it is the CCF Summer Cup, and so effectively a tournament of evening-league games - if I can keep up my form in those then I will be happy indeed! It's a one-game-a-week event and the first round is on Monday.
* Later our captain consulted one of the arbiters and was told it would in fact be quite acceptable. But hindsight is 20:20...
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