The traitor's hand, Part 1

The next Castles match in the Croydon League was our final away fixture - but the closest to home in more ways than one, since we were 'travelling' to Wallington A, which is within walking distance of Wilson's School, where most of the Castles players are based. For me, of course, it meant a game which I'd rather have avoided, but it was obvious there would be no choice. In fact, I wasn't the only Wallington member playing for Castles that night, which in a 4-board team is quite impressive!

Since their top board dropped out at the last minute, we were massively stronger on paper (172-153, 167-142, 133-112, 117-87) - a welcome change, and cause to hope for the breakthrough at last. I had white again on board 2, against Graham Wallis (142), and at least knew a few things about my opponent - he is a sensible and solid player who was in the 160s quite recently, but he plays too quickly and can miss things sometimes. Frankly, it seems I underestimated him, since some casual play got me into trouble very quickly. But in the end, it was indeed a hastily-played blunder that saved me:

Avoiding defeat was enough to bag us the coveted win (3-1; DWDW), and inevitably our other win came from the other Wallington member. I was relieved to have managed that mark of respectability, but my contribution wasn't very impressive.

I am still learning the intricacies of the Short Attack, which is very complex once White plays c4 as he usually must. White's advantage is all dynamic, and piece activity is the foremost concern. That's why there are so many lines in the notes where White blows up his own structure - but not in the game itself, where I was much too cagey. That allowed Black to consolidate to a position where I had nevertheless burnt my bridges, and I compounded things by a lazy evaluation of the position arising after his 17th move. I always try to prefer a better position to a grading advantage, but I can't say I always succeed. A chessplayer must stay objective! My salvation was out of my hands, really - though it's true that the combination at the end was quite satisfying.

Mere days after this bit of back-stabbing, I was at it again for my 4NCL team - this time against my employers...