Making up the numbers

As I've said before, I'm trying to cut down on weeknight chess for the sake of results - too often I run out of gas well before the end, and it's scrappy at the best of times. But sticking with Castles as an upper-board supporting act has given me a fair number of games lately. So far they've proven my original judgement to be fully correct!

On Thursday it was the turn of the Lauder Trophy preliminary round (the 'last 16' of 9 entrants!) for which we travelled to Streatham. The 140-average grading limit suits us nicely, and we didn't even have one grading point spare in our team. Streatham, meanwhile, had two boards spare! I was only worried about a front-loaded opposition, and 176-178, 167-144, e137-Def, 125-Def, 121-138, 114-125 looked winnable enough. I had White, 20 minutes and 23 grading points on board 2, where I faced 144-graded David Varley. I certainly thought that I'd be able to find a way to win somehow, but instead I proved my own theories correct:

That's what I mean by supporting act! I didn't contribute much, but I did survive, which allowed the defaults and a time scramble to work their magic. It was 4-2 in the end (WDWWDL) and we now take on South Norwood in December.

My game, inevitably, was muddled. Black's opening choice is poor enough that even my faulty memory only cost me an advantage, and soon I got even more than I would have done in the mainlines when he played 13... Qe4?. In general, my technique was enough to send the game in the right direction - by move 35 I was on the cusp of a winning position - but there were too many random events. Looking back, it's hard to understand why I didn't play 16. c4, where my common sense went when I tried 22. h4 and 23. Bh3, and how I could have overlooked the x-ray defence after 35. Rd6, a move which is jarring to have to look at. I don't respond well to being surprised, and I did little else all game. Analysing this game isn't fun, but it was interesting to note that White's usually fearsome bishop pair is nullified by the loss of the pawn centre, since they need open lines to function: even in the Winawer, the dark squares aren't everything. Besides that, I have yet more evidence that I need to toughen up when faced with counterplay. The barest hint of it made me collapse here.

However, it is what it is, and as long as I think that I'm helping Castles more than I'm hurting myself by playing these games they will continue. Even so, it is a relief to have a change of scenery now: I have the second half of this week off work, and I'm playing in the e2e4 Gatwick International Challengers. It's a 9-round all-play-all (probably), and at the moment it looks like I'll be slightly outgraded in most of the games. But we'll all know more soon.