Telling a story

Round 5 then, and black against Jose Pablo Lopez Gomez (175/2004), who is a student at Manchester University (he says with his BUCA Secretary hat on). It can be a daunting prospect to face someone on a maximum score after several rounds - I've twice won a tournament with 6/6, and in each case I only got there because I happened to be on 5/5 - but it's best to try and forget about it. He'd played my CSC colleague on the previous evening, and we had dissected the game afterwards; I wanted a sharp position without concrete tactics, since I judged that I would understand it better.

And that's exactly what happened:

So what are the lessons? Preparation is about looking at your opponent, not just their openings; I think I'm getting quite efficient at doing this even with limited information - though it's a risky business of course - and the benefits are evident. Sharp games rest on understanding just as much as more positional struggles: when only a few moves in a position are playable, it is invaluable to know what you should be looking at, and to vaguely sense which way the wind is blowing. In Bristol, Chris Beaumont likes to talk of calculators and story-tellers; I am an unabashed story-teller and barely calculated anything in this game.

Although I was very harsh on White in the notes for dithering with his kingside attack, I was a bit lethargic on the queenside too, at least until I found the decisive ...Nd7-e5-c4 manouevre. There were a couple of lazy assumptions, on moves 15 and 18, that I was lucky to share with my opponent. My main criticism though would be that, for the first time in the tournament, my time management left a lot to be desired, and it made the concluding moves a terrifying ride even though it's all over bar the shouting. As usual, the black hole was moves 15-20, on which I took almost 45 minutes - a concerning sign, since my speed is usually a reliable barometer of my form. And yes, such thoughts do occupy my mind even when I'm having my best ever tournament! With 3½/5, a grading performance north of 200, and not even a particularly bad move to my name so far, it was starting to look as if I might just have found that elusive next gear. Four games left though...

As it happens, neither of my games on the Saturday, the final day of the APA section, are worth publishing individually (though for very different reasons). So I will lump them together to relive how I scored 1½/2 with a grand total of one independent move!