Desperation at the chessboard

Shortly before the game featured in this post, I started to suffer from an appalling headache. (I suppose a cynic would say that staring at ChessBase for hours beforehand didn't exactly help.) One of the main lessons of this blog down the years has been that you can only expect bad things to happen when you're not in peak condition, but it was too late to postpone and I still wanted to play, so off I went to Wallington for my club championship game against Graham Wallis (139), our resident speed demon. Despite his grade he knows how to play, and I very nearly came unstuck in our last game two years ago.

You'd think that better preparation and two years' progress would count for something, but I flirted with disaster once again and could have had no complaints if justice had been served this time. For a neutral this chaotic game should provide great entertainment, but for me it was agony until I finally staggered home:

Even winning my final-round game to get to 5/6 probably won't be enough to take the title, and if I have to slog my way to wins like this then rightly so. At least I found a way, but it could have been a lot simpler.

As I said at the end of the notes, there is a hint of desperation about my play in this game. I'm always at pains to say that chess is a very logical game and you can't just wish an advantage into existence, but that's effectively what I tried to do by avoiding the trade of light-squared bishops. Going into murky (read: bad) tactics seemed the natural extension of my play; maybe it was, but not in a good way. Then there was the clock. Up to move 27 I was having a rare good day, but for the last ten moves I reverted to form and caused myself no end of unnecessary problems. In sum I have the very problem I'm trying to help my 11-year-old student deal with at the moment: putting too much pressure on myself, and being preoccupied with results rather than good moves.

Well, my friends, with that we are just one game away from catching up with the present. I'm skipping another event, but I hope I can be forgiven since this was blitz: the Croydon League's Bielski Cup team competition. Wallington played for the first time in forever, and to my surprise I managed a nominal 194 performance, beating a 216 with black along the way. The team was in contention for the runners-up spot all the way through, but after a bad final round we had to be content with sharing 4th place and the grading prize. Nevertheless it was a welcome boost ahead of yet another game for Wallington - a league game I would have rather skipped, but had to step into as a last-minute reserve. This time justice really would be served.