The necessity of targeting the promotion pool* means that I only play a few of the games, and even then I'm on bottom board so that our statutory junior player doesn't just face his peers. The Sunday game of the second weekend was my first appearance, against Cambridge University 2. We expected a tight match, but apparently form was with us since we'd notched up two wins from three. The grade line-ups were 205-186, 214-200, 199-193, 183-196, 192-185, 175f-187, 161-190, 168-166, and I was on board 8 with black against their junior player, Holden Davis (166/1707). Successfully preparing an advantage out of the opening wasn't difficult, but holding my nerve to prosecute proved a bridge too far:
My game was hard to assess at the time, so I was content to stabilise one of our black boards and contribute to another valuable win, 5-3 the result (WDWDDWLD). But I wouldn't have taken a draw if offered it beforehand, and certainly not with the benefit of some preparation! In the modern age it's plain madness to repeatedly play a bad line, and I was annoyed not to punish that despite getting just the sort of position I was hoping for out of the opening. In the postmortem he genuinely seemed to believe in it, but you can't get very far deceiving yourself like that. White's position looks awful! In reality, I simply became too unnerved by my supposedly loose pawn centre, and all the more so once the tricky 15. Qb5 appeared on the board. My attacking play was jittery, making a simple strategic mistake by keeping the centre open and overlooking some big tactical points as well. Even once I'd consolidated (via a nasty combination hidden in the notes on move 21) and stood rather better, I was unable to realise it. It was frustrating later on to realise that if we'd played on I would probably have gained the upper hand eventually. At the time though, I didn't feel able to play on - it seems that I can only force myself to play on and on at this sort of speed if the match position demands it.
On the bright side, my ability to prepare well remained undimmed despite the more casual approach to evening league games of late, and I was able to maintain my solid start to the grading list. That cautious approach continued into my next slowplay game (after a rapid/blitz night at CCF, which unfortunately I will have to skip thanks to a different sort of time trouble), the resumption of Castles' campaign in the Croydon League.
* The top divisions run on a 'pool system' - two APA groups of 8; the top 4 teams from each group go into the promotion pool for the final 4 rounds, and the top 4 teams from that get promoted. Vice versa for relegation. It works, but you only carry forward scores against teams in the same second-stage pool as you, which can create some anomalies.
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