A loyal customer

On the morning of the second day I had to play the toughest of opponents for me, Alex Golding (203/2174). After half a dozen games I'm still waiting for my first half-point, which can't be ascribed to strength alone. Since he too is an intuitive player with a strong grasp of dynamics my usual method of aiming for positions I understand better doesn't work, he sees faster than I do and above all is much stronger mentally than me. (That, I think, is the main thing I lost as a late starter.) Before now, I also had to play black in every game too!

My one advantage is that I can win games in the opening, so maybe it was a mistake to go outside of my repertoire for this game. I decided to go for a positional system against the Najdorf, which worked up to a point, but I didn't know it very well and in the end I got outplayed, fair and square:

When you're commuting across London to the venue you can only do so much preparation even when pairings go up the night before, and that's not enough to learn a system as wide-ranging as the Adams Attack. I guessed that he'd prefer the Scheveningen formation and got it wrong; as a result I didn't know that White should to go for the throat against lines like the one in the game. If I had another chance I'd throw down the gauntlet with 6. Bg5, but doubt can do strange things.

Of the game, I think 12. b3?! is a slip to remember - it's better to let Black exchange off his bad bishop than make it good by being stubborn. On g5 it ensures that I can't open the long diagonal for my own dark-squared bishop, which gave me a slightly passive position; I never really found a positive plan in this unfamiliar setting. Black's hasty exchange on e3 finally gave me an opportunity to use the dark squares, but by allowing him to take the c-file I landed in a tricky endgame. It should be fully defensible, however it requires attention to detail and that has never been my strong suit.

The long wait goes on then, but having played him three times in the last 14 months I may not have to wait too long for the next chance. In the meantime I was still at the sharp end of the tournament and had another difficult assignment in the afternoon.