Beginner's luck?

Sunday dawned in Bristol, and yes, it was still raining. It seemed an apt metaphor for my tournament so far, but at least I was slowly sinking to my true position in the draw. I had black against Sierra Jiminez (156/1924), which finally meant a name I recognised from my time in Bristol. From league matches against Clifton, my memory was that he is a good scrambler, but he can be positionally outplayed.

Well that was the plan, anyway. In fact there was a bit of a role reversal:

Horrible once again! At least dumb luck isn't affected by form, otherwise the weekend would have been even more of a disappointment. I feel that I understand Botvinnik positions better than I used to, now that I've played a few, but it remains my fear that an opponent comes up with something rare but playable, for this is still not my kind of game without book knowledge. 14... cxb3?? makes that clear enough, instantly turning the position from sharp to hopeless. 11. a4!? is an interesting idea; I feel that Black is able to solve the problems, but it requires some thought. Instead, I got a lost position almost straight away, and I can only wonder what caused Jiminez to throw it all away after that.

It's worth saying, however, that I've played the Botvinnik System twice now in serious games, and won both games in a combined total of 42 moves. So there must be something in it. Perhaps it just shows that players at my level are clueless in these positions!

Just one game left in the tournament then - one that is no more fun than the others for me to play back over, but does give me an opportunity to do a long-overdue theoretical survey.