The warm-up act

It probably says something that I forgot to mention in my previous post that I played at the Richmond Rapidplay on Easter Sunday. On paper I did quite well - 4/6, winning the U-180 grading prize for the second time in three visits - but in truth the Open was merged with the U-160 section after two rounds, with scores carried forward, and with 0/2 I simply carved my way through the bottom of the Major for the rest of the day, although it was far from easy (I got strategically crushed as black in a Najdorf by a 96-graded 9-year-old!) After that, it was back to the serious stuff.

Last season Castles left the best to last with a buzzer-beater win in the CCF Superleague that kept us in the top division. Although it's not really the point of the team, we'd done enough to stay up by November this time - the remaining games were just useful experience, and our final fixture unintentionally became a bit of a training game for me. Again we played Pawn Crackers, and again we were outgunned: 184-196, 175-175, 123-168, 125-134. I had white against Nasir Rizvi (175/2047), a solid player who mostly lurks in the 180s. I took an uncharacteristic approach to dealing with the Hanham, a line which has given me plenty of problems, but it worked well enough:

Some people make quick draws - get over it! We lost 1-3 (LDDL) to finish the season 6th of 8, with 2 wins and a draw from 7 matches. I scored 50% - this was my only game all season that wasn't won by White. But it was one of the more interesting to me; the 4. Nge2 system really needs to be taken seriously! I think the reason that I dislike the Hanham is that it demands such accuracy from White, largely because the central tension remains for a long time. This game was much easier to play, although both sides showed their unfamiliarity: Rizvi dawdled horrendously on the queenside, and I failed to apply my knowledge of other openings by inexplicably holding back on g4-g5. And of course, on a different day I might have met 5... exd4, when I would have been talking about the perils of last-minute preparation again.

Anyway, this was just a warm-up act for the main event: the final weekend of the 4NCL, with Downend needing 2/3 to stay up. On Saturday I was shocked to hear that we may take voluntary relegation even then, which only fired up my stubborn streak: if we were to go down, it wasn't going to be my fault.