Some like it hot

More through logistics than best laid plans, my pre-British chess has been limited to rapidplays once again. Time will tell if that was a good idea or not; the Weald Congress didn't do my confidence any good last year but it did give me some slower games. Anyway, I spent two sweltering Saturdays in succession earlier this month at the board, and did at least manage to play some interesting games. Here are some highlights.

The first tournament of the two was the annual monster open at Kings Place - slightly lower-key this year, but it clashed with the County Championship finals day (including Surrey in the Minor Counties, which gave me a dilemma; thankfully they won without me), the World Senior Teams and, perhaps worst of all, England playing in the football World Cup. Nevertheless I was decisively in the lower half of the draw, and got paired with an FM, John Richardson (209/2175) in the first round. Unusually, I knew exactly what to do in one of the more intricate lines of the Caro-Kann, and it became a very complicated fight:

The rest of the tournament was less memorable, even if 2½/6 was a clear advance on the last two years. I showed some decent technique to beat the London System in round six, but you can only be so proud of a game in which you have a rating advantage of almost 550 points so let's jump ahead.

We rejoin proceedings at Golders Green (actually now in Hampstead, which is much easier for me to get to) with your author sat on 1/3 after losing to two ~200s with black and scraping past a 138 with white. In round 4 the Swiss system continued to wreak havoc, and I was white against Cem Ozturan (144/1616). As the reader will soon see, this game is the odd one out: my opening play was inconspicuous to say the least and I had to grind it out with some help from Black's nerves:

Then in round five I got a rematch with John Richardson - I'd have preferred to bask in the glory of our first game a little longer, but there you go. We didn't really speak the first time round, but since in real life he is an official at the ATL he had some contact with Chess in Schools (including me) when I was there. When he gave his assessment of that I immediately started to like him, which made this game a lot more enjoyable than it might have been:

Lastly, I played white against a junior, Ethan Sanitt, rated 149/1670 - not much higher than when I played him three years ago. In a higher sense he had a lost position by move 9, and the reward was a swashbuckling win of my own:

[Event "Golders Green Rapid Open"] [Site "?"] [Date "2018.07.14"] [Round "6.14"] [White "Young, Daniel J"] [Black "Sanitt, Ethan"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "C18"] [WhiteElo "173"] [BlackElo "155"] [Annotator "Young,Daniel J"] [PlyCount "43"] [EventDate "2018.??.??"] [EventType "rapid"] {Suitably inspired, now it was my turn to have a go...} 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 c5 5. a3 Bxc3+ 6. bxc3 Ne7 7. Qg4 Qc7 8. Bd3 cxd4 9. Ne2 Nbc6 $2 {Strategically speaking, a terrible move - White now gets all of his usual positional advantages with a pristine structure to boot. The normal move is 9.. . dxc3.} 10. cxd4 $16 Bd7 11. O-O Kf8 $5 {A fair try: castling kingside would be suicidal, but sacrificing the g-pawn isn't much better (11... O-O-O 12. Qxg7 Rdg8 13. Qf6! is worth remembering, not giving Black any counterplay). So Black 'half-castles' and keeps a rook on h8 to defend, but at the cost of giving my dark-squared bishop an obvious destination.} 12. a4 Nb4 13. Ba3 a5 (13... Nxd3 $144 {doesn't help Black's cause, since it frees the dark-squared bishop and also gives me the c-file. More concretely, Stockfish gives a nice line in} 14. cxd3 Bc6 15. Nf4 {, threatening 16. Qxe6 and, more thematically, also teeing up Nh5 to force further weaknesses. If Black unpins his knight as the computer suggests then} Kg8 16. Nxe6 $1 fxe6 17. Qxe6+ Kf8 18. Qg4 Kg8 19. f4 $16 {gives White a probably unstoppable attack.}) 14. Qh4 Bxa4 $2 15. f4 $6 $18 {Strategically consistent (the queenside is irrelevant to White) but not so tactically alert: 15. Bxb4 axb4 16. Bb5 would have won material. Still, I don't regret this move since what actually happens is far more instructive.} Qd7 16. f5 Bxc2 $4 {Black too is consistent... and grabs everything that isn't nailed down. But now his position collapses quickly.} (16... exf5 $142 {is most tenacious, however} 17. Nc3 {(threatening 18. Nxa4 Qxa4 19. c3)} b5 18. Bxb4 axb4 19. Nxb5 $18 {regains material and keeps an overwhelming initiative.}) 17. fxe6 Qxe6 18. Bxc2 Nxc2 19. Nf4 Qd7 {White has various ways to win here, but the prettiest is undoubtedly} 20. Ng6+ {: pin and win!} Ke8 21. Nxh8 Nxa1 {I could happily take on a1 now, but having come this far there's no reason to pass over} 22. Rxf7 {, and Sanitt resigned on the spot. Black can try to defend with 22... Ng6 (which I missed) but White wins most amusingly with 23. Rf1!. This tournament was hard to read given how extremely I suffered from the Swiss yo-yo effect, but it was nice to win a game like this as my last before the British Championship.} 1-0

Mixed messages, I think: the twelve games held some sparkling moments but also things I would rather forget. As I summed it up to someone yesterday, my fate at the British depends on whether Jekyll or Hyde turns up to each game. On the plus side, I played some nice attacks - especially against Sanitt - even if I didn't put them all away. Also, outplaying people from quiet, equal positions is something I can only do on good form. On the other hand, I had to play five 200s with black and lost to them all - only in the game against Richardson above did I really get a playable middlegame.

And now back to work. I have one more discursive post I'd like to write before the British, but first I really ought to go over the troubled second half of last season.