A wake-up call

More by accident than design, I've only played in away county matches so far this season, and after two trips to Sussex (one to collect a point by default) it was now off to Willesden to take on Middlesex in the U-180 section. As in our season opener, travelling did not help our strength: this time I was up to board 4, where I played only my second ever county game against someone younger than me, black against Gautam Jain (172).

Curiously, this game was another Grand Prix Attack - but much scarier than the game linked above. I was fortunate to escape a firestorm against my king when he let exuberance get the better of some strong attacking technique. I then reached a winning endgame, only to waste my efforts with some feeble technique of my own:

The match was drawn 8-8 - leaving us in the happy position of leading at halfway with 2½/3. But we could and should have won, via my board if nowhere else.

There is an obvious contrast between this game and the preceding ones up to the start of the Gatwick tournament. They were all about putting pieces on good squares, which I can do quite competently: I performed at 194 across those 11 games. Here, Jain went for my throat, forced me to calculate... and I was hopeless! I just wasn't seeing any of his ideas: I lazily rejected 14. f5 as unsound, missing his 15th and 17th moves; 19. Bxf7+?? was incorrect but I should at least have checked it. The endgame was just as disgusting. It should be quite easy for Black to construct a mating net with a rook, knight, bishop and pawn all in the attack, but that requires concrete thinking. To cap it all, I came within a whisker of leaving my rook en prise on the penultimate move of the game.

A good run of form has not solved my long-standing weaknesses then, and we will see more of the same in my next slowplay game. Before that, however, I decided to play in the inaugural British Bangla Chess Association Rapidplay the day after this game. It was unrated and G/15, so very scrappy. On the whole the games aren't worth publishing, but I will show the first round - after all, you don't get to play 2650+ GMs every day...