No place for doubt

 As I said in my last post, this game fell in line with tradition before it even started. I have a long-standing habit of getting paired with people I share a car with, and this time it meant yet another encounter with young James Golding (170/1814). Although he is often in the shadow of his brother Alex, I've learnt the hard way that this is unfair - I'd scored a grand total of ½/4 against him before this, even moving my Queen en prise during CCF's Easter blitz! He knows his chosen openings very well, is deadly with active pieces and an initiative, but can be a little accident-prone. Remind you of anyone...?

 This was a rare case of me happily taking black, since the Ruy Lopez line I play against him is still in for repairs after I got crushed at CCF's Easter rapidplay. I also had a chance to take the plunge and show myself that I really could switch to 1. d4 d5. Everything turned out well, except for an old enemy rearing its head yet again:

  An important departure in some ways, but the finish shows that some things haven't changed at all. Not losing has always been a bigger priority than winning for me, and so there is always this gnawing subconscious temptation to bank whilst the going is good. As I tried to explain afterwards, the Goldings are lucky: they're too young to remember what it was like to be weak. As a late starter, I remember only too well. I struggle with the tension of a serious game, but on this occasion there was clearly no reason to get nervous... at least for black!

 Nevertheless, there were some nicer signs from this game. For one thing, I finally managed to force myself away from the King's Indian! Before, there always seemed to be an excuse for 'not this time'. In the past, I could never make Queen's Gambit positions work for me since I tried too hard to force the pace, but since I slipped right into it and outplayed James for almost the first time, it seems like a much better fit now. Admittedly there were some hints of unfamiliarity, most obviously 13... g5?, but on the whole I managed to play actively without wrecking my own position. I think white drifted a little, maybe hypnotised by the minority attack. This is very common: everyone knows that white will play b4-b5xc6, followed later by a win of material on c6 and much later by 1-0. Black's Kingside play is vaguer, less formulaic, and so harder to see coming. But it is still there!

 All things being equal, I would consider a draw from this pairing to be a success, though under the circumstances it is obviously disappointing that my nerves failed me again. However, I was in for some shock treatment in round 4.