Fight night

 Now came the big game, then - top board in the C event where I had 2.5/3 and my opponent was on a maximum score. I think my biggest motivation was the thought of winning a tournament as a filler! Nevertheless, it's not often that I chain together enough good games to make up a tournament and I was hoping to make something out of this rare opportunity. Sure, if I had won then I would have had the entry fee deducted from the prize, and I certainly wouldn't have complained at that. But it seems to me that my consistent underperformance in congresses is a mental barrier more than anything else - show that up once and who knows...?

 Fairytales can happen, but it must be said that I didn't have the easiest task. I had black against Jonathan Landau (181/1926), whose play had been very convincing up to that point even if none of his opponents had really resisted. For the most part his opening repertoire is rooted in sidelines, but for this occasion he resorted to something that's almost mainstream. The second half of the game was a real struggle - it's just a shame that white had a 20-move headstart...

 Oh well - the dream was over. But chess is a struggle and on the big stage I came out second best; everyone gets outplayed sometimes. I'm pleased that I put up genuine resistance after deciding on my pawn 'sacrifice' - after that point I don't think that Landau did any better than I did, but I'd given myself too much to do. I decided to provoke a tactical meleé, and held my own in it against a 181 - I hadn't seen 25. Rf3, true, but I'm convinced he overlooked 23... Qe8. The only shame is that black may be able to set up a fortress in the Bishop endgame - 40... Kb5? is a bad lapse and shows clearly that calculation is not my only problem. I almost feel that I deserved to hold the draw, just for hanging in there! But not quite.

 The reason for that is my performance for the first 20 moves, which left a lot to be desired. It will take more than this to convince me that white can really get anything out of the Grand Prix, but it reiterates black's need for caution. From the theoretical point of view, 9... Nh6!? and 14... Ne7 are both possible improvements, so there is no existential threat. It's strange that I could go toe-to-toe with him in the confusion later on, and yet miss 15. Rc3 (not especially good, but it never even occurred to me), as well as the intermezzo in the 14... Ne7 variation, the point that his Knight cannot land on the d6 square because of the pin on the long diagonal, and also the instant win for white with 18. Na6. Realising the strength of that move was a turning point of sorts - the rest of the game was at least respectable for me, but not enough. Up-and-down from both sides, but in the end it was a fair result.

 That loss put paid to my chances of tournament victory, but a share of second was still possible and I had the twin advantages of a big downfloat and the white pieces. First though, I was needed once more for the final round of the afternoon event.