Vertigo

 I'm sure we can all think of at least one team that puts its faith in crazy board orders. But is it gamesmanship or desperation?* For the Bristol University A-team at the moment, probably both. This week I found myself on the exalted heights of board 2, against the league leaders Horfield A: a daunting prospect, although their strength lies mostly in depth. This happened partly because my likeliest opponent plays a weak line that I fancied a go at, but also because our collective form has simply not been very good.

 Amusingly, for my courage I got the perk of another white, but Horfield too had rotated their board order and so I also got one of their lowest-graded players! That put paid to some rather extensive preparation, but maybe it will come in useful one day... for this game I had to rack my brains over something I looked at over two years ago! My opponent was Derek Pugh (177), who he has been on excellent form to date, with a league performance of over 200. We had most of our top players in the team (somewhere!) but 195-204, 164-177, 156f-187, 193-179, 171f-182, 150f-170 didn't look very promising. And indeed it wasn't to be - I was the only player in our team to avoid defeat. I played a very interesting game to maintain my unbeaten run, but in the process I discovered that fear has returned to my game:

 This was even closer to a whitewash than against Bath - the 0.5-5.5 (LDLLLL) might well have been a clean sweep if he had noticed 16... Qf6. At the time though, everyone thought that I'd just choked in a position that was close to winning, which would certainly not be a first for me. When making the offer, I certainly thought that I was starting to gain the upper hand. Set the computer to work and this narrative falls apart, but it set me thinking on the walk home: is my whole game defined by this lack of self-confidence?

 The most obvious symptom is the obsessively deep opening preparation: I don't trust my own moves enough, and I'm not comfortable if I don't know the battleground in advance. But there is ample evidence, from this game and many others, that I can play chess as well as remember it! The strangely-timed draw offers (as many people have said, 16. g6 is not the conventional way to start peace negotiations!) can't be ignored either, though this is cyclical: compare the Spring and Summer of this year, for example. To be unbeaten after 5 matches, but only have one win, is kind of embarrassing, especially with the paradox that my play is deliberately sharp in order to avoid draws! All of my moves take at least a few minutes at the moment: I have to check everything thoroughly to make sure, but the only certainty that results is time trouble. That, of course, makes me even more nervous.

 It also seems that my lofty words about taking a more laid-back approach are looking a bit empty. Yes, I haven't drawn up an inordinately detailed breakdown of my results and grading performance yet, and the abstinence from online blitz continues, but fundamentally my attitude doesn't seem to have changed. Losing still hurts too much, and whilst my style may have become a little more swashbuckling (this makes three games in a row with Queenside castling!) it doesn't count for much if so many of my games end so abruptly. At least they can be blogged more quickly.

 Our next match is on Tuesday against the ex-University defectors at Downend, who are in hot pursuit of Horfield. The frantic search for results goes on, and I note with trepidation that I am now the A-team's only unbeaten player...

* This is part of the reason why I prefer colours not to be pre-determined. Whether it's a benevolent desire to maintain colour balance, or a more cynical approach (for instance, everyone knows that I do much better with white, and so I don't get given many blacks) there are too many temptations to distort the true strength order. But there are stupider rules out there of course.