Red Herring

Despite my ½/3 contribution so far, Downend had enjoyed a superb 4NCL season. I was only down to play on the Sunday of the fourth weekend (my preference, and it fits with our other part-timer) so I was spectating for the final round in our starting pool. Hackney had strengthened enough to solidly out-rate us, but we still edged it 4½-3½. That qualified us for the promotion pool in third place: 4 teams of 8 would go up, and since no club can have 3 teams in one division, even 5th place might prove enough.  First up, Celtic Tigers, one of the teams who accompanied us up from Division 3 last season.

This time it was 212-195, 199-209, 192-196, 193-195, 189-193, 170-183, 164-176, 167-178, so a slight advantage to our opponents. But it hadn't meant much in our matches to date. Still, I was disappointed by the fact that so many of our players were terrified at the thought of getting promoted - just play and see what happens.

I had white on board 8, against Sam Herring (178/1911). I decided to invest most of my Saturday night preparing for his usual Fort Knox line. There are more exciting things to do, but I think it was useful - just not for this game! Instead I was able to unleash an opening surprise of my own which worked better than I could have ever hoped:

Well, you see, sometimes my principled ways do actually work. And in the end we needed them to, for a few boards went awry, restricting us to a 4-4 draw (DDWDLDLW). Still, with the field so bunched, there was everything to play for over the final weekend at the start of May.

I must mention that our board 1 thought I'd taken 15 minutes on my tenth move and then immediately blundered a piece! Thankfully it was a bit deeper than that. White's refutation isn't obvious though, so there was definite panic when he took the plunge with 10... d4?. Thankfully it all fell into place, and Black was suitably punished for knowingly playing an inferior move, which is precisely what I refused to do by rejecting the easy 10. Bxc5. Once the smoke clears, White's position runs on oiled wheels, although obviously 21... Nc4?? made things easier than they could have been. Given what happened in February, I wasn't complaining.

This game was a welcome boost after some anaemic draws. I can often be a momentum player, so it was probably a good thing to play the very next day for Wallington in the Surrey League.