This time, I had the white bits as well as five more years, and I certainly wasn't out to equalise any more! I was happier to play the line that Fenwick chose than the one I'd prepared for, and although I had some help I'd done the hard work by move 15. And yet somehow the rest of the game boiled down to a sorry tale I've told only too often:
Part of the challenge when discussing games like this is finding something original to say. Building a position like the one I got after 16. Rfc1 isn't difficult - Black's chosen variation just looks positionally unsound to me, and moves like 12... Nd8, 13... a5 and 14... a5 certainly don't help the cause. But I often get frustrated by lengthy resistance, and this time I scored a hat-trick of missed wins before almost managing to toss away the draw as well.
It's worth mentioning my positional misunderstanding about h5-h6 though. It's not always necessary to open ranks and files to conduct the attack; opening diagonals can also be strong. In the end my dark-squared bishop never truly got going, even though it's still there in the final position. I also failed to play the d5 break more than once; I'm willing to indulge myself on move 30, but 21. d5! could easily have been found if I had only looked a little deeper. If I could have a grading point for every time I've written that...
That left only one round to go, and it was still hard to say whether the tournament would go down as a success. Certainly it was better than previous efforts though, and whilst an upfloat to a 202 wasn't what I wanted, I could console myself with a third white in four games. Once again, history was set to repeat itself.
It's worth mentioning my positional misunderstanding about h5-h6 though. It's not always necessary to open ranks and files to conduct the attack; opening diagonals can also be strong. In the end my dark-squared bishop never truly got going, even though it's still there in the final position. I also failed to play the d5 break more than once; I'm willing to indulge myself on move 30, but 21. d5! could easily have been found if I had only looked a little deeper. If I could have a grading point for every time I've written that...
That left only one round to go, and it was still hard to say whether the tournament would go down as a success. Certainly it was better than previous efforts though, and whilst an upfloat to a 202 wasn't what I wanted, I could console myself with a third white in four games. Once again, history was set to repeat itself.
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