An Indian sign?

So, I failed in my little mission. Since I've played a couple of games recently, this post leaves me a dozen behind, and so I'm not playing at Gatwick this weekend. Perhaps that's for the best, since my recent form hasn't been very inspiring, and adding another 7 games to post would make the situation hopeless. As it is, I can still hope to be up-to-date one day, and I can console myself with the first 10-post month in a while.

Round 4 gave me yet another game against James Golding (172/2095) - it's a running joke that if we both play in a tournament we are always paired, and it had happened a week earlier at the CCF Easter Blitz. There I barely swindled a draw out of him, promptly lost to his brother Alex from a good position, and won every other game to finish =2nd on 5½/7. This time the game would be more important for the other end of the crosstable. Nevertheless, since our previous game, he'd had a 198 performance at Hastings and qualified for the British Championship, so he probably won't be in the 170s for much longer.

In the game linked above, I said that I welcomed a game with black, since the relevant line of my white repertoire was still in for repairs. Embarrassingly, that remains the case. I was left with two choices: try and find something in a mainline where even the elite aren't making much headway, or cook up a dangerous sideline. Thankfully, I do have a little common sense:

And again he escapes! I've still never beaten any of the Goldings in a tournament game, and you're only allowed so many missed chances. This is probably the closest I've come, and it still wasn't that close - I came to the board with little more than bluffs (and I was lucky to have just that - 13... O-O! was an accident waiting to happen), turned them into a big endgame advantage which I wiped out in only a few moves.

There are very few people who I won't even try to prepare right off the board, and you can add one to the list here. Of course, 7. Nxe5 holds no promise for white, but at least there are some interesting lines for an unwary victim to walk into. James thinks he is much better in quiet, strategic positions, and dislikes sharp tactical games - I think he's being harsh on himself, having been mated more than once, but it's true that he missed 14. Be3!, yet then equalised a horrible ending just like that, taking no time on the clock. It was quite exasperating, and shows that you can't switch off, and should always aim for precision. As innocuous as the mistake looks, 18. Bxc4 may have been quite expensive.

The fifth round continued the theme: I prepared quite deeply for a game against a young opponent - and myself.