Once upon a time in the West

 Eventually, the day of my last chess game for Bristol University had to come. But I didn't think it would come so soon - the three years of my degree have flown by. On the day of the game (which started with a fire alarm at 6:45am) I discovered that I have played rather a lot of games in that time!* But none of them had been as important as this: with the consequences of relegation being unthinkable, we virtually had to win against Bath to stay up. That would be difficult at the best of times, but all the more so when all of our players with published grades over 165 were unavailable, and one of their hardcore absentees had decided to sample our famously cheap bar.

 I was playing him, on board 2 for a final white - the 197-graded Ben Edgell, who is a well-known figure in the world of English chess politics, especially in the South-West. This meant that my last game in the Bristol League was the one against the strongest opponent. Bath had brought a strong team (thankfully shorn of their 189-graded board 3, which was an encouragement) - 212f-205, 164-197, 147-179, 159-178, 149-167, 128f-157 - and before the match I had pretty much resigned myself to our fate. We had fought like demons in the second half of the season, but it was surely a bridge too far.

 I approached this game in an unusually carefree manner. Deciding that I had to win, or go down in flames trying, and wanting to play the sort of spectacular game that I have never really been able to produce in Bristol, I was going to play the Evans Gambit. Ben has horribly mishandled it in the past, and after preparing it in my typically obsessive depth, I found that it is far more threatening than most sources seem to think! Unfortunately (or maybe not?) I will have to keep my secrets for another unwary victim, for he steered well clear of that and simply waited for me to fall apart. It was a disappointing end, but completely overshadowed by what was going on elsewhere:

 To everyone's amazement, we didn't just beat Bath but destroy them, 4.5-1.5 (WLWWDW). Since Clifton B and Horfield B had postponed fixtures still to play, nothing was decided on the night, but I'll spare the reader the weeks of agony that we went through; Horfield B managed to win their final match (also against Bath), but Clifton B threw it away in a time scramble and could only draw - thus we survived by a point. The final table:

1. Downend A - Pld 18, Pts 27, GPts 70
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2. Horfield A - Pld 18, Pts 27, GPts 69
3. South Bristol A - Pld 18, Pts 26, GPts 60.5
4. Clifton A - Pld 18, Pts 22, GPts 59.5
5. Bath A - Pld 18, Pts 18, GPts 56.5
6. Horfield B - Pld 18, Pts 16, GPts 50
7. Clevedon A - Pld 18, Pts 16, GPts 49
8. University A - Pld 18, Pts 14, GPts 50
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9. Clifton B - Pld 18, Pts 13, GPts 50.5
10. Clifton C - Pld 18, Pts 1, GPts 20

 Stating the obvious, it has been a fantastically tight battle at both ends of the table, and a season that will live long in the memory. And not least for the University; at Christmas, even a few weeks ago, everyone thought that the writing was on the wall, but our fightback has been superb. My performance for the season was 172, lower than I would have hoped but still much appreciated. Meanwhile, our boards 3, 4 and 6 in this match have outplayed their grades this term by 51, 23 and 53 points! And our top board has scored an impossible, unbeaten, 10/11, even whilst being captain and finding time to look over everybody's games afterwards. Who could ask for a better team? Having avoided the one potential blot on the record, I could leave the University a contended man.

 But for my own game. It's easy enough to get over in light of my team-mates' heroic efforts, however it seems that I was overcome by the occasion, for this was unquestionably the worst game I have played for a long time. Up to this point in the year, I had only ever really been outplayed in a slowplay game by the clock, and even on this occasion I was doing fine until close to the end. But then I disintegrated as soon as I faced the slightest difficulty. Despite my bellicose intentions, I wasn't really up for a fight after all; I tried to play with the slight edge in hand, and so I couldn't adjust when it was necessary to dig in. My abstention from 5. g4!?, whilst by no means a mistake objectively, is in some ways the most disappointing moment of all; without my precious computer preparation, I cannot take the leap. At least I did do one service to the chess world: I'm sure Ben won't be playing the Philidor again! Although he won, he surely had a miserable time. If you find yourself playing such obviously bad moves as 14... fxe6?! in search of counterplay, then it's fair to say your position is unsatisfactory. 

 With exam season setting in, and a summer in Bristol with almost no chess going on, I thought that this would be the end of my season. Within days I discovered that I was wrong. We have one game left to cover, and then it will be time to talk endgames.


* The figure I initially came up with was 72 (58 in the Bristol League and 14 at BUCA.) But someone reminded me that Downend's 4NCL team was trading as Bristol University last season, which would take me up to 79, or even 85 if rapidplay games are included. I doubt it's the record, but it must be up there.