A clean debut

 It was a fairly uneventful afternoon at CSC Towers on Monday when the phone rang, and I was summoned into the other office to speak to someone. I assumed it was quite important. In fact, it was the captain of the Drunken Knights chess team, wanting to know if I could step in as a reserve for their London League match that evening! He used to work for the charity, and still takes an interest, so had already mentioned the idea to me. And now this devout teetotaller really was going to play for the self-styled 'drinking club with a chess problem'...

 It's been a while since I played in the middle of a third team, but the Drunken Knights are a strong club in a strong league. Their venue, a pub opposite the British Museum, is one of the league's star venues; a bit cramped for my taste, but you can't complain too much when you get free chips and sandwiches! We were playing the Dulwich 1st-team, and on paper it promised to be a tight match: 188-205, 187-205, 170-182, 170-166, 168-159, 164-e150, 162-152, 158-142, 129-137, 115-111.

 I had white on board 5, against Ben Simpson (159). A violent opening soon resolved itself into a strategic procession, and I was able to chalk up a first win in very smooth style:
 

 My teams are starting the season on a roll, as we achieved a convincing 6.5-3.5 win - WLDWWDDWDD. It was certainly a different experience, though I don't want to be commuting home at 10:30pm too often. I expect I'll only play a few games in the London League, but evidently my captain knows a few tricks!

 Though there are clear drawbacks to one's chess in starting a full-time job, it also has an upside. In life as in chess, I crave stability, and being a student was too bohemian for my tastes. Now I am in a much calmer frame of mind, and so far my results reflect that. Normally I like my appearances to be planned well in advanced (and fully prepared for, of course) which means avoiding late call-ups as a reserve, but I shrugged it off here and won fairly convincingly. My opponent said that he changed his mind on his 11th move at the last moment,  and his next two moves hint at the consequent unfamiliarity. After that, it's only too easy for white.

 Before I get too self-congratulatory, there are still warning signs from this game. I wasn't very familiar with the 10... h6 variation, and was grateful that black steered the game back to more familiar channels. Also, my calculation was typically lazy. True, it was almost never necessary to calculate anything, and black's one attempt to stir up complications resulted in him losing material. It would be easy to smugly conclude that black's tactics were never going to work because the strategic logic was against him. But I scanned 23... Rxc2+ too briefly to see what the real idea was, and it was basically luck that I had 25. Bc4 available when needed. This time three years ago I was going through a similar phase when the tactics always worked - but then subsequently discovered that it can work both ways...

 I will have to hope that my clubs' good form continues, as the next two matches I'm scheduled to play are both challenging. First up, on Monday I will be playing for Castles in the CCF Superleague, as we try to make a better attempt of holding our own in the top division.