Nerves beget nerves

Our penultimate match was against King's Head, a perennial fixture in Division 2. They started the season strongly but then slumped, and when they showed up on the Saturday with a weak team it looked like that was that. Well, at this stage of the season I should have known better, and they were stronger on the last two days, but it would be a bit rich of anyone from my team to complain. 242-212, 235-189, 208-204, 181-205, 190-204, 195-190, 183-180, 181-143 would have been difficult for us on any other weekend of the season. I was on board 7 again, with white against Mark Davey (180/1987). He alighted on an opening I'm always happy to see, and in the first half of the game I smoothly outplayed a 180 for the first time in many months. Sadly I then reverted to form for the second half...

Crucially, KJCA got the points in the bag with a 5½-2½ win (WWDWLDDW), which meant that our position now looked quite secure. It was all sorted before my game came off the rails, so I only had to stew for myself.

And how I stewed. Black didn't seem to realise the importance of creating counterplay, and 19... Nb7? deservedly led him into a lost position within a few moves. But I must have wrecked more good positions than any other player of my strength, which is a habit I'd started to hope I was getting over. The disease is always lurking though, and can maybe only be allayed, never cured. I haven't lost the ability to craft good positions over the last few months, but converting them requires confidence. As evidenced by my ever-worsening battles with the clock, confidence is something I'm desperately low on at the moment. It really does feel like I have to win every game twice. Tactical failures (25. Be1?! and 35. g4?!) and jumpiness (38. Bxc5?, the critical moment) are close companions right now.

But never mind that; there was still one round to go. The situation was good, since we were playing the minnows of the pool whereas our two rivals, King's Head and West is Best, were playing the top two. Basically, we just had to match King's Head, and even that might not be necessary. I took it as a good omen that our opponents were White Rose, who I and Downend beat on the final day last season to stay up. That was one of my biggest contributions 12 months ago, but there was to be no such luck for me this time.