Interlude

 It's always been the case that, even on my best runs of form, I can be blown into a self-conceived crisis by even the slightest turbulence. Two consecutive losses (the second to a 204!) was enough to set it off again, and at the time of writing I'm still waiting to emerge on the other side. The problem is that such a belief is self-fulfilling: once you start to believe you're playing badly, you really do. Blessed the mind too small for doubt...

 Like some sort of vampire, I have to feed off a constant diet of good results, or everything will collapse. Pathetic, but true. So there were worse times to have the second week of the CCF internal rapid/blitz events: most of the top players don't enter, so I'm a very high seed and avoid the stronger players for a while since it's a single-section Swiss. At the second time of asking, I was able to make a clean sweep of all 5 games I played on the night.

 After beating a 109 in the team event (after declining a draw in a totally dead endgame for the team's sake) and then an ungraded junior in the first individual rapid game, my third and final game of the night at rapidplay speed was a tougher assignment on paper: black against Martin Faulkner (141) who is a solid 150+ player at slowplay. But I was provoked into launching an early attack, and this game certainly wasn't solid:

 Then onto the blitz. First I had another miserable time against the same 109 (with white this time!) before he allowed a mate in two. My last game was against Dominic Warner; we played a few times a couple of seasons ago and had some very sharp positions. This one was a little quieter, but ended far more violently than any of the earlier games:

 I guess you can't be dissatisfied with 5/5. My tournament position is now very good in both events (part of a four-way tie for the lead in the rapid, and outright second in the blitz) although the 0.5/2 bye for missing a week seems a little penal, and I may have to miss the December round, which would arguably drop me out of contention. I also showed some flashes of good play. Although some of the games were worryingly difficult to win, I was never actually threatened - and when that happens, you never really know how well you played.

 Still, I hoped it would be a psychological boost, as it sometimes has been in the past. Only two days later I was back at CCF and about to find out, as Castles began their return to the Croydon League.