The limits of practicality

The first third of the tournament concluded with white against Patryk Krzyzanowski (197/2087) - someone who I saw play quite often when I was in Bristol, although never against me. He was a very effective operator in the Bristol League, but I realised when looking over some games the night before that there was a large practical element to this. I wrote in my recent 'philosophers and problem solvers' post that there is no longer any such thing as a purely tactical player, but perhaps Krzyzanowski is the exception that proves the rule!

Dazzling your opponents is harder in a five-hour session though, and after working my way through a tricky opening I was able to win efficiently - with a cute tactic of course...

If you look at the clock times you'll see that both sides, but particularly your author, used the vast majority of their time before move 20. There is a good reason for this, and it was a recurring pattern throughout the event - at this level getting a bad position is pretty much curtains, and you won't get anywhere by muddying the waters and hoping something turns up (as I will find out the hard way in two rounds' time). You can attempt to solve the position in the early middlegame and still have enough time left to deal with any thrashing about, and I feel I was able to do this; Black was strategically lost long before one of his rooks went missing.

My approach to the opening also seems worthy of note - knowing my opponent allowed me to take a calculated gamble which worked out very well. I came to the board knowing that with best play after 6... d6 I wouldn't get anything, but also very sure that he wouldn't go into something so tame. 6... Ng4? duly appeared, and by resisting the urge to blast it off the board I got an easy advantage by natural means. Black didn't even get a novel position - it was just a Dragon in which he is far too slow, so I knew what the plan should be.

Round 4 turned out to be one of the more interesting struggles of the tournament. I may have been black against a 2400+ FM, but a struggle it was!