Never go back

Two months after the event, I'm not sure why I ever thought going to Bristol for a weekend tournament would be a good idea. There are too many bad memories, and whilst I met some great people there, none of them were playing in the Winter Congress. Combined with my atrocious form and the background stress of the impending London Chess Classic, it shouldn't have been hard to predict a miserable experience.

My memories of Bristol chess weren't improved when I found myself with a full-point bye in round 1. Having replied to an e-mail inviting electronic entries with payment on the day, to say I'd be doing just that, my name (and mine only!) was omitted from the entry list. So I was only reinstated at the last minute, after the pairings had been done. Getting an instant 1/1 might sound good, but as I found out at the LJCC Open in 2014, it skews your pairings for most of the tournament. On Saturday morning I found myself black against Daniel Malkiel (2158), who came to Bristol after I left. But I'd heard he had a crushing position against the University's top board, which given the latter's heroics last season had me alarmed. Unsurprisingly, the game was something of a procession:

 Obviously, I realised at the time that I had been outplayed - but not that it had been quite so comprehensive. The mark of a good player, I suppose; it's the strategic error 14... dxe4? that does the damage, and I don't think the position could have been defended after that. I'm learning these quieter defences to 1. d4 quite slowly; although you feel like more of a participant than in an equivalent disaster in the King's Indian, it was really no better. Since Black is effectively admitting he is slightly worse when he plays like this, he has to be exact: inaccuracies are no longer lost in the confusion. And that means autopilot play isn't good enough.

 This was a rout - but it was also my longest game of the tournament! The third-round game was probably the worst of the bunch though.