An unnecessary reminder

 Two-and-a-half weeks ago, I was revising for exams, packing my bags to return to Bristol, and... preparing for a chess game. I'd timed my arrival for the London Chess Classic, and now I'd timed my departure to make a Surrey League fixture. It says all you need to know, I suppose. I was playing for Wallington I in the Beaumont Cup (second division) against Ashtead II. They won promotion last season after falling just short for several years, but are finding it tough going: they had lost all three of their matches coming in, two of them by 0-8 scorelines. Despite our tame Grandmaster being unavailable, our late default of the bottom board, and me being put on board 2, we had a big grading advantage - 178-159, 164-156, 168-150, 165-147, 156-123, 145-119, 145-108, Def-107.

 Curiously it's been almost three years since the coin toss gave me black in a Surrey League game, so I had white against the 156-graded junior James Golding. He beat me rather comfortably in the Summer Cup, but with colours reversed I hoped to level the score. Besides, I was almost forced to prepare for him since no-one else had games in the database! Surrey's notorious triple-finish system has the away player offer two of the three time controls; I suggested an adjournment in Bristol as a joke but we both wanted a quickplay finish. That meant only 80 minutes each - and it showed:

 One of those nights, it seems, although we were spared the worst by scrambling to a 4-4 draw (DDDWDWLL). I'm pleased to have ended a long string of disasters against the Goldings, and this result should look much better in a few days, but on balance I ought to have won. I still don't really believe the pawn sacrifice (although I did underestimate it) and the win was there at the end. Then again, black had his chances too: it was a deceptively complicated game!

 This seems like an archetypal game on my part: a long prepared line nets me a pawn for some activity; unconvincing defence allows some chances that luckily only trouble the notes; I get to an ending with the extra pawn but fail to convert it. I'd decided long before this game that 2015 would be my Year of Technique, but this was certainly a game to go in the manifesto. My main frustration is that I actually looked at the winning line, but stopped one half-move short of realising that black was in zugzwang. The theme just never crossed my mind until he pointed it out in the postmortem. Not for the first time, I was handicapped by my inability to take ugly moves seriously. I've wondered before if my bad endgame play comes from short time limits, but I must note that after reaching the time control I had 27 minutes left; 5 obvious moves later I was down to 12. I just play them slowly.

 Yet again, it's clear that if you can't convert your better positions, there's not much point having them in the first place. True, the ending may have been drawn anyway, but he never had to work for it despite missing the simplest method. I've lost so many half-points that something must be done - but I knew that already. First there is the pesky matter of my degree to finish off! Term is starting up again, and so are Bristol League matches - first up on Thursday we play Clevedon, and we badly need the points.