A single step

That really did just happen, didn't it? A 2254 (208) performance, two wins with black against IMs, and a 50% score in the British Championship. It all went way beyond my expectations; after the six months I've had I really did fear that there was a non-zero chance of being whitewashed, and before this tournament I hadn't beaten a 160+ in a standardplay game all year. As it is I think I earned a day off, but it's now time to get back to work - I am as keen as everyone else to understand what caused such a breakthrough, and no matter how much success you have there will always be lessons to learn.

The first game in the biggest tournament of my life was against the strongest Manx player, IM Dietmar Kolbus (222/2303). He is a solid player with good understanding, but he seems to be lost before he sits down against the big guys, and occasionally risks too much against weaker players. The strategy for this game then had to be to get an edge from the opening and keep it, playing to nerves one way or the other. Although I didn't make the most of the opening, I regrouped successfully and kept playing good moves. Kolbus did the same, and in the end a draw was a logical if surprising result to kick off:

It's easy to forget from here, but this was my first ever result against an IM (ironically almost a year after I beat a GM in a blitz game). It was probably also the most important game of the tournament, for as I have said many times before I am a momentum player above all else, and I needed some belief. Whatever else happened, I couldn't be whitewashed now!

We will see me champion the Short Variation again in this tournament, and whilst it is notoriously intricate when Black elects to play it slowly, the reward for knowing your stuff is an opportunity to put him under real pressure. The basic strategy as I understand it is that Black doesn't have enough squares for his pieces, and whether he tries to regroup them on the queenside or dangle them in the middle of the board White can drive them away from the defence of the king. This time, as against Richardson at Kings Place, the ...Nc8 plan allowed me to build an attack, although Kolbus defended much better and I let my best chances get away by playing by rote at move 15. Nevertheless, I'm happy that I started playing good moves again once I had to think for myself from move 17 on. It's just a pity that all rook endings are drawn...

Needless to say, things were not going to get any easier, and the challenge confronting me in round two drove me to commit an act of sacrilege.