Steamrollered

In the absence of anything better to do, I was back at the board the very next day, at the British Bangla Chess Association Rapidplay. It was their first event, which understandably meant some teething troubles: they overran to the extent that they axed the final round, whilst having only one room for players, parents and a junior section wasn't good for noise. Nevertheless, their hospitality was excellent (they gave everyone free lunch!) and unrated G/15 was an interesting change. And I was right in the middle of the seeding, so to my amazement I was paired against Matthew Sadler in the first round! A rapid grade of 275 is just ridiculous, making him easily the strongest opponent I've faced one-on-one. I recently read the book he wrote jointly with Natasha Regan, Chess for Life, which is aimed at a different demographic but is nevertheless a very interesting concept. It was a worthy winner of the ECF Book of the Year Award.

Anyway, my game against him was rather less distinguished, as I contrived to get checkmated in 20 moves... by the London System! But if both players are in the mood, these things can happen:

Thus endeth the lesson. I of all people should know not to go into sharp lines unprepared, but I didn't realise that ...Bf5 isn't a magic bullet in these lines. At least it made for an interesting game...

In the end I scored 3/6 for a nominal 174 performance, but the clock always intervened so it was a bit of a lottery. My only regret is that I didn't experiment in the opening as much as I should have done. I always managed to persuade myself that I needed to stick to lines that I know. On the bright side, I managed to avoid my usual nervous breakdown in time trouble. Hopefully I can replicate that in the future.

By this point, everyone at CSC was gearing up for the London Chess Classic, but I still had time to squeeze in one more game before having to watch everyone else play for a while. I've basically given up playing for Wallington now, but this looked like a probable title decider...