Review of the Year

Here we are again on New Year's Eve. As I write, Colin is playing in the Hastings International afternoon U-120, with a chance of winning his section if he wins today - it will be a great achievement if he can manage it, since as we all know, winning any tournament is a very difficult. I managed to win one (very small one) this year, and had chances to win both the British Championship and the Leicester Congress before falling at a late hurdle.
In fact I have played two tournaments since I last wrote on here, at Scarborough and Bury St Edmunds back in October. These are both tournaments which are an important part of the year - Scarborough is the largest of the year and Bury St Edmunds is my favourite event, but sadly these were both complete disasters for me this year, so much so that I couldn't bring myself to write about them here. Indeed, for a few weeks after Bury I was seriously considering giving up altogether because it was such a dire performance.

Scarborough
To sum up quickly, at Scarborough I played all right for no reward, which is what always seems to happen at Scarborough. I lost in the first round, after being in a better position, which was galling as it's always hard to come back from a round 1 defeat. Afterwards, Russell Goodfellow showed me the win I had missed with a clever tactic. Round 2 I lost a fairly dreary end-game. Round 3 I blundered dreadfully in time trouble against a low-ranked player - fortunately for me, he was in time-trouble as well and missed the fact that I'd given him a free rook! Round 4 I drew a game after getting a fine attacking position; again Russell showed me the win I'd missed. Round 5 was against Alan Fraser, the most experienced player in the country - again, I got into a good, sharp, attacking position and ended up blundering away a Queen. For the event, I stayed at Dave Stephenson's Sister's place; it was very nice of them to put me up. Most entertaining incident of the tournament was watching Dave's reaction to the fact that both he and his opponent missed the fact that there was a rook left hanging for five whole moves. He was beside himself, it was most entertaining.

Bury St Edmunds
I went to Bury with high hopes, but it turned out to be my worst tournament for about 2 years. Morgan Daniels was away in America meeting Bob Pollard, but on the plus side, Colin came along. His chess career is enjoying a wonderful renaissence just as mine appears to be stalling, and he had a good event at Bury. The venue had been changed - it was a shame to bid farewell to the Corn Exchange, but the new venue, a brand-new civic centre, was superb. What was not at all superb was my disasterous chess form. In round 1, I lost to a low-rated junior after being ahead - just blundered a rook for nothing. In round 2, I managed a win against another low-ranked player. Took a drinking bye in round 3. On Sunday morning, I lost on a tactic to an Asian boy who picked his nose throughout the game. Round 5 was my worst game of all ,when I just capitulated to a very low-ranked player without putting up a fight.

Halifax
I also played in the British Rapid tournament in Halifax - did all right on day 1 with 3.5/6 I think, but came back on the Sunday morning and lost the first two rounds, so I pulled out at that stage. I also travelled down to Brighton in November to watch Colin play. He had a good tournament playing in the Major - his form is going from strength to strength at the moment. I found it hard to get decent accommodation and ended up staying in a bit of a flea-pit hotel in Hove which still cost me £38.

Review of the Year
The year started with snow. I went along to the York tournament in January in thick snow. I didn't feel like playing in round 1, so I took a bye. I met up with Nigel Fleming for the first time and he and I caned a few drinks that evening. On the Saturday I got the train back to York, and played all right. I managed to beat two members of the same family, but came unstuck against Sophie Seeber in the final round in a good sharp Nimzo-Indian. I could have come 2nd if I'd won that. Overall, it was a good event.

I travelled to Dublin for Gonzaga at the start of February - had a good weekend with Eoghan, but Gonzaga, as ever, was a disappointment. It's the tournament I've played more often than any other - this was my 6th time there - and I've always done poorly. The event got off to a bad start when I lost a friendly to Eoghan in the pub. The tournament had been moved to a draughty sports hall which didn't help. I lost in round 1 to my old friend Phillip Maguire (no relation to Eoghan) - fell for an opening trap in an Albin Counter-Gambit and try as I might I could never get the material back. I got a walkover in round 2, a good draw in round 3 and lost badly in round 4.

The following weekend I played at Kidlington in Oxfordshire, which is a tough tournament since the bottom section is under 145. I proved that players rated 130+ are really perfectly beatable. I got 3 draws against strong players, and two of those were from good/winning positions. We can forget about my one dire defeat! This event also marked the resumption of Colin's chess career, with such stunning recent results.

I had an unremarkable weekend at Doncaster over my birthday, getting 50%, and then commenced an unprecedented series of 6 tournaments in 6 weekends. At Huddersfield in April, my work colleague Chris Welch played, as did Dave Stephenson - we had a nice curry on Saturday night, though Dave was taken ill on the Sunday and had to pull out. I hope the curry was not responsible. At least I managed to improve on last year's 0/4 - I had a good tournament after a bad loss in round 1 to John Eddershaw during which I managed to miss win via a mate in one! I bounced back though and ended up with 3.5/5 for joint 2nd place. In the last round I agreed a Grandmaster draw, much to Dave's disgust. The next weekend was Easter, and I played at Coulsdon. The venue there is a rather depressing Church hall, though it has the benefit of being a short walk from my parents place. I had a pretty poor tournament - a win and a couple of draws but two bad defeats. On the Saturday night, when my friend Grete had come to watch, I managed to lose in a c3-Sicilian in 9 moves - the first of several very quick losses I was to have this year.

At St Alban's the following weekend, I got off to a superb start on day 1. I won in round 1 against Mark Silman, the bloke who looks like Lovejoy. In round 2 I got revenge on John Eddershaw, though it was rather hairy - I had just blundered a piece in a wild position when he walked into a mate! On 2.5/3 overnight, I was quite confident on the Sunday morning when I was drawn against someone rated only 57 - but the spinners had another idea, and I lost in short order and withdrew.

Much the same thing happened in Nottingham the following weekend. The only reason I was playing was that the volcanic ash cloud had prevented me going to Berlin for the weekend. The Saturday was a fairly nondescript day, with a win against a junior and two draws. I turned up on the Sunday to play a young Asian boy. Within 10 moves I had won a piece, blundered my Queen and resigned! I withdrew in disgust and went to the cinema.

Things looked up the following weekend at Hereford. I had done very well the previous time I played there, and this tournament was held at the Blue Lion hotel in the centre of town. Colin came down for it as well. The night before the tournament, I went to see Peter, an old friend of the family who lives in a village near Leominster, and had a very nice 3-course dinner in his book-lined cottage. I stayed in an excellent B&B in Kingham. I had decided to play the event wearing a suit and tie. My parents came along to the venue on the first morning, because they were in the vicinity. It was also a very small tournament - only 7 people in our section. I'm not sure which of these factors was responsible, but I hit my best form of the entire season and won the tournament. One game was unfortunately against Colin, who was out-of-sorts, because we both hate playing friends, but I had three other very good wins and won only my second tournament.

The good form continued the following week in the unprepossesssing surroundings of a working-mans club in Halifax, where, after a disappointing loss in the opening in the opening round, I had a good win in round 2, and then a very good day on the Sunday, scoring two draws against 130+ players, including a tough junior in the final round.

And so the 2009-10 season ended with me in good spirits; there had been some disappointments along the way but I was definitely on good form. I then took a long break from chess, during which I did go along and spectate at the Grange-over-Sands event. The summer included an excellent walking holiday with Michelle in two parts - a few days in the Hebridean islands of Islay and Jura, during which we visited several whisky distilleries and had a 14-mile hike to see the largest whirlpool in Europe, and a few days in the Southern Uplands near Moffat. We also did several marathon-length long-distance walks, the highlight of which was the Malvern Midsummer Marathon. And I went to work in India for 3 weeks during which I would spend my weekends sitting by the hotel's rooftop pool doing chess study!

It was nice to have a long break from chess, and when I returned from India I headed off the following weekend to the British chess championships at Canterbury in optimistic mood. I was due to play the weekender and then in the under-120 event the following week. Colin was there for the weekender as well. The event was staged in a rather dreary sports hall but the campus itself was nice and it was good to have a chess holiday for a week - I was looking forward to spending the afternoons drinking the odd pint of beer and watching the Grandmaster games. In the event, the weekender went pretty badly - I had some dreary draws and a shocking loss in the opening to Peter Brace. I hate playing friends at the best of times (Peter is a reader of this blog) and he wiped me out in 10 moves - it was a bit like my schocking quick defeats at Coulsdon and Nottingham. It seems that I am prone to the occasional bl0w-up in the opening in sharp positions - moreso than my other chess-playing friends. And the interesting thing is that in all 3 games I was ahead before managing to fall apart in under 10 moves! Maybe I just get overexcitied in these positions, who knows?

Anyway, I returned to Canterbury on the Monday morning for the main event, the biggest tournament I'd ever played in, the British Championship, and it turned out to be a really good week. I had an easy win on the Monday, then got drawn against a high-rated junior in round 2. The event was supposed to be for under-120 strength players; but because it was based on last year's grades, this chap was by now rated 136, so I was really pleased to get a draw. I then managed to win good games on the Wednesday and Thursday, to go into Friday's final round on 3.5/4 in joint first place - the British Championship was almost within my grasp. Well, that game went wrong and I ended up on a creditable but unexceptional 3.5/5, and I came away swearing that I would dedicate the whole of the ensuing season towards the 2011 British in Sheffield: home turf.

The next tournament was Leicester in September, a new one for me, which Morgan Daniels came up for, and I had a remarkably good start to it, going right to the top of the leaderboard on 3/3. Morgan and I had a good curry and night out on the Saturday, and when I came back on the Sunday morning my good form continued as I went two exchanges up against Antony Mathurian. That was when he started his extraordinary psychological gambits - laughing out loud and making comments, which so discombobulated me that I not only lost that game, but also my form plummeted completely. From Hereford to that game, I had won 10 and lost 3 out of 19 tournament games. From that game to today, I won 3 and lost 8 out of 15 games. A complete turnaround in form.

The rest of the story of 2010 is quickly told. Hull was a dreary event at which I only managed 50%, though the venue was sound (a convent) and there was a good cocktail bar round the corner. The two key tournaments of Scarborough and Bury St Edmunds were dire failures which I have already written about above.

So, a mixed year. Some progress, some real successes, but a dreadful finish to the season. I have not played any tournaments since Bury St Edmunds, and have spent the time reassessing my chess precepts and trying to work out ways to improve for 2011. I have managed to come up with a list of chess resolutions which I hope will address my biggest shortcomings and help me to get better results in 2011, including for the all-important British Championship in Sheffield in July.

Dreary weekend at Hull

HULL - Day 1, Friday 8 October
The Hull tournament took place two weeks ago, but it was such a disappointing weekend that I've only now just got round to writing about it, and I'm only doing it now because today the Scarborough tournament begins so I have to get this written up.

After have [almost] very successful tournaments at the British in Canterbury, and then in Leicester, in both of which I was in contention for the title until near the end when things went awry, I knew I was overdue a bad tournament. Hull was also the site of one of my worst-ever results back in 2008, so all in all the omens weren't good.

At least they moved the tournament from the deeply dreary and freezing cold Students' Union building to a much nicer venue near the city centre. It was a convent/retreat centre - an old and characterful Victorian brick building full of chapels and halls and corridors all quite higgledy-piggledy and with a very nice atmosphere. There were also nice gardens all around, with tinkling fountains and the like, and nuns flitting around genially. It would be a very good venue for a retreat.

I got there quite early, but feeling very out-of-sorts, only to find to my delight that I had requested a bye on the Friday night - I'd quite forgotten. That was because I wasn't sure at the time whether I would be working in Dublin that day. I was very happy to get a night off from the chess! The tournament was quite small, maybe about 100 players all told, and was being held in a side hall near the main building.

Colin Fell and Dave Stephenson (who lives in Hull) were both playing the event as well, so I watched the start of their games and then headed off for a curry. There was a very nice, inexpensive curry house over the road, no doubt a favourite venue for the nuns' nights out, and I had a very nice curry, spiced up with lime pickle in the sauce, which was a novel idea, which only cost me a fiver. And they didn't have a drinks licence, so I got some tins of Kronie from Sainsburys. All very satisfactory.

I went back to the chess hall. Colin's game wasn't going very well to say the least - he was a Queen down - so I headed back off to a nice bar I had found earlier round the corner. It was quite a trendy-looking place, quite empty but for the barman, who was a young chap with a John Travolta (as he is now) hairstyle. He was very knowledgable about spirits and we had a good discussion about fine whiskies, brandies and tequilas. I sampled an unusual tequila which was very nice indeed.

We got onto the subject of cocktails, and he told me that their official menu was all just for students, full of fruit juice and generally not for the discerning punter such as myself. He mixed me a negroni (gin, sweet vermouth and campari - quite similar to the Cardinale I make myself, which has dry vermouth in it), which was absolutely delicious - and I think he gave me a good discount as well.

I got back to the chess hall, feeling distinctly warmed, to find that, amazingly, Colin was fighting his way back from a Queen down and, in fact, he went on to win the game! An amazing escape from being so far down. Dave Stephenson was beside himself with excitement about it and kept saying how inspirational it was , how much better than my own inclination to resign when I lose a pawn.

Colin was staying at my place for the weekend, which is about an hour's drive from Hull. I couldnt drive with that cocktail sloshing round inside me, so he drove us back to my house.

HULL - Day 2, Saturday 9 October
Turned out to be one of my worst chess days for a long time. I was feeling fairly tired and out-of-sorts when I got up. In the first game, I had a dreary draw which never really got going. I've just now got around to putting it in the computer, and have discovered that I missed at least two good chances to win material which would have given me a clear advantage. That shows how out of sorts I was: these were things that I'd usually have seen.

We had lunch in a pub round the corner which had a "two meals for £6" deal on.

The afternoon went even worse - I was playing a chap I lost to the last time I played at Huddersfield, friendly bloke with a big white beard, and I managed to repeat the performance and the result from 2008. I got into a sharp tactical position, calculated a line which was losing a pawn - but played it anyway! The game was pretty much lost after that - even though I was only a pawn down I had no counterplay. Colin said he'd have resigned it even earlier than I did.

Colin did slightly better. He lost in the morning and won in the afternoon, so he was on 2/3 and I was on a demoralising 1/3 overnight.

We went back to my place and went out for a curry with Michelle before doing a little chess analysis and getting an early night.

Day 3 - Sunday, 10 October
Neither of us was in contention for the title any more, but at least I didn't pull out of the tournament which I would have done in former times. I reminded myself that I am regarding all these games merely as practice for the real prize, next year's British Under 120 Championship.
And Sunday was a somewhat better day. In the morning, I managed to win, albeit against one of the lower-ranked players in the section. It was quite a good, tactical game and I managed to control the tactics and emerge on top. Colin had to play the white-bearded bloke I had lost to the previous day, and he managed to blunder his way to defeat as well, despite having been ahead. The chap joined an exclusive club of people who have beaten both me and Colin!

We had lunch in the pub again and a few games of pool. Dave came along as well.

My afternoon game was a typical low-key final round game where neither player has anything to play for, and ended up in another quiet and uninteresting draw, despite some very odd play from him in the opening, so I ended on an uninspiring 2.5/5 overall. Colin at least won his last game and finished on 3/5 with 3 wins.

An uninspiring tournament and an uninspiring blog entry to match, not helped by writing it 2 weeks after the event! Let's hope for better things at Scarborough.

Leicester part II

The Hull Congress is now in full swing - well, round 1 was last night and Colin is here staying, but needless to say, my journal is still out of date and I have to finish off the story of the Leicester Congress.

Game 4 - Pyschological tricks
I didn't sleep too well. It was still raining when I awoke on Sunday morning. Daniels and I stumbled to the venue. As I had predicted, I was playing the other bloke on 3/3. He looked like a boxer and was very aggressive in approach. He clicked the bones in his neck before we started and he gave me a very firm handshake. I was surprised, however, that his chess didn't seem as incisive. The game was a fairly incipid Queens Gambit Declined, and before long he gave me a tactical opportunity to exchange Queens and then win a Rook for a Bishop. My King was in the middle of the board, but I had a significant material advantage. He used his minor pieces to harrass me, but then he missed another simple tactical motif and I won his other Rook for my other Bishop. So now I was two exchanges up, which is quite unusual. All I needed now was to consolidate the position and exchange off the remaining pieces to win the game.

At this point, he started doing some very strange things. He laughed out loud to himself a few times and started talking to himself. He got me a bit rattled and I did let him get to me a bit. He managed to pin one of my Rooks against my King, but he didn't take it immediately and kept checking. I was able to get my King out of the way. At this point, I was completely winning. He said "I'm going down swinging". He sat staring at the board for ages and then he said "Ah, there is always a way" and then played a move, which turned out, on later inspection with the computer to be rubbish, but it still forced an error from me. When he'd seen that, he shouted "Yes!!!" and banged his piece down on the board really loudly.

Peter Brace, who was sitting on the next board, looked up irritatedly and asked him to be quiet. I showed no reaction. I played on for a bit but was clearly lost and the game was soon over. I had lost a game I had been totally winning, mostly because of his psychological tricks. Something to watch out for in the future. I can't pretend to have been happy about it, since my chances of winning the tournament had gone up in smoke.

Daniels and I went for a walk and bought vegetable samosas for lunch. I went to a bargain shoeshop and got a half-price pair of Grensons.

Game 5 - anti-climactic draw
After all that excitement, the last game was always going to be hard work and so it proved. It was a c3 Sicilian and he played the opening a little loosely and offered me some chances but I got a bit carried away and moved my Queen rather too spiritedly into the middle of the board and was forced to back-pedal for a bit. I used up half my time on the first 11 moves. The Queens came off and things quieted down.

I was still discombobulated after the morning's fiasco, and at one point, wanting to take his Knight with my Bishop, I actually managed to pick up the wrong Bishop, which couldn't take his Knight. As he pointed out, I was now forced by the rules to move the piece I'd touched. This could have been a serious problem if it put me in a bad position, but fortunately I was able to get away with it all right. Shortly after that, he offered me a draw which I accepted. In the end I got 3.5/5 and won a £30 grading prize, but that was somewhat disappointing after being almost on 4/4 and heading for a possible tournament victory.

Daniels' last game went on and on until he and his opponent were the last board playing. There were a couple of arbiters hanging round the board and some spectaters. The clocks were running down and down. Daniels eventually had 1 minute, his opponent had 2. Daniels was looking stressed as usual, with his hands in his hair, but his opponent appeared totally insouciant and calm as his clock went down and down. He calmly moved and wrote his move down. Daniels moved. His opponent just sat there, and his time ran out. Daniels pointed perplexedly at the clock and the arbiter said that he'd won on time. The opponent couldn't believe it. He thought he still had 20 minutes to be added on but the arbiter pointed out that the game was over. It was 6.30 and the game and tournament were over.

Daniels said "I feel awful about this" and asked if he could retrospectively offer a draw, which was very gentlemanly - he could have just taken the win on time. The arbiter said he could - it didn't affect the tournament, and so that was what happened. The opponent was not very gracious about it, which annoyed Daniels somewhat.

That was that - another tournament over. Daniels and I went for a quick pint with Peter Brace before going home. He had a long wait for his train back to London. Peter lives in Nottingham and so I followed him back to the M1.

Leicester - incidents and accidents

Game 1 - a quiet start & a brush with the law
The tournament was being held in a typical venue, a school hall. The school itself was a big sixth form college on the edge of Leicester city centre - quite a dramatic building put up in the 1930s I'd say. The actual venue was fairly dreary - a basketball court-cum-drama studio in the bowels of the building. In quiet moments during the games, I had a wander round the school. There was quite an attractive courtyard in the middle.

Dave Stephenson had said that attendence was low, but the turnout was reasonable for the Friday night despite a large number of travelling byes being taken for round 1.

In the minor section, I had an (on paper) relatively easy draw against someone rated 90. I managed to open the c-file, then win a pawn, and eventually came through to win the game after a lengthy passage towards the end when his Queen was chasing my King around the board. I was able to knock off a few pawns during this scenic tour and eventually was able to finish things off.

I had a drink after the game with a chess friend, who asked that I did not mention his name. We had a pint (well I had two and he had one) and since it was raining he kindly offered to drive me back to my hotel, which was a good bargain but in a fairly grotty part of town just off the ringroad. On the way, we were stopped by the Police - because he had a break light not working - and as a matter of routine he was breathalised. He was safely within the limit and we were allowed to proceed on our way. I got back to the hotel and went to bed.

Game 2 - a tough challenge ends up not being so very tough
I had a Subway breakfast with Michelle and then hurried to meet Morgan Daniels at the station. He had just got the train up from London. Unusually, he wasn't in his nightwear or an old lady's hat and blouse, but fairly conventional attired. We walked to the venue, talking of this and that. He made disparaging remarks about Leicester, a theme he was to return to over the weekend.

I saw to my distress that I'd been drawn against a player rated 128 in round 2, the second seed for our section. When I realised that he was an East European gentleman, I thought that it was going to be a tough test for me. But it turned out not to be difficult for me at all. He (White) played a fairly inferior opening (The Bc4 Sicilian) and soon made a serious mistake which allowed me to open up his King's position. Soon my Queen and Knight were hovering round his King; I won a piece, and thereafter the game was fairly easy to win. Towards the end, he didn't resign despite being totally lost (I think I was a Rook up and had a pawn on the 7th rank). The Stephenson Test for Resignation ("Could you beat Kasparov if the board were reversed") was easily passed. Morgan, who had completed his game, was hovering around looking perplexed. Anyway in the end, he did the decent thing and we went off for lunch. He must have just had a bad game, because he proved his ability by winning every other game in the weekend and finishing up in second place.

Morgan and I went to Wetherspoons for lunch. Then he wandered off to an art gallery to get some postcards - I seem to have infected him with the urge to send postcards to his nearest and dearest - and I went to get my wallet (which had fallen behind the hotel TV) and room key from Michelle, who was heading back home. I helped her with some important purchase decisions as well, then we said goodbye and I headed back to the venue.

Game 3 - Three out of three
For most of its length, game 3 looked like a dreary draw. The game was a fairly dreary Queen's Gambit Declined and I was playing a solid 124-rated player. Most of the pieces had come off the board and we had an end game position with locked pawns in the centre. It all looked pretty draw-ish until he inexplicably started moving up his King-side pawns where I could take them and hit his King. I suppose he didn't want a draw and was trying to drum up some activity. Sometimes you have to accept the half point. I got a pawn up and swapped off the pieces and then the win was fairly easy, since I ended up three pawns up in a same-coloured Bishops ending.

Once again Morgan had finished before me. We went off for a curry. We had a couple of beers and then went to one of the curry houses I had known in the time I worked in Leicester. Morgan summed it up by saying that the curry was all right but the curry house experience was lacking.

As we walked back to the hotel, it was pouring with rain. The walk was some 15 minutes and by the time we got back to the hotel my suit was a damp rag. I forgot to mention, I repeated my approach at Hereford and had been playing in a suit, although, this time, sans neck-tie. I seem to go well in a suit - 3/3 at Hereford and now 3/3 here.

We drank some wine and did some analysis back in the room before passing out at some time around midnight I think. I woke up at 3.30 and couldn't get back to sleep for a bit. I suppose I was stimulated by the thought of being on 3/3 overnight, which isn't a situation which often comes along for me.

I suspected I'd be playing the other bloke on 3; I'd been watching his games throughout the weekend so far and he seemed to be a well-organised and aggressive player so I knew it was going to be a tough struggle.

New chess season

Leicester
Hello from Leicester where I am now in a hotel room getting ready for the first tournament of the new season. I've not played this one before but I'm told that numbers are down. Michelle is here with me tonight, though tomorrow she will go home and I will be sharing this room with Morgan Daniels who is coming up for the event. Something of a contrast in bunkmates!

This weekend, the Galway tournament is also going on - and I've played that every year since 2005 (normally with signal lack of success but plenty of Guinness!), so I'm sorry to miss it because it's a good event, but the rocky state of my finances forces my hand this year.

We went down South yesterday and accompanied my sound work colleague Ian Imms to the St Albans Beer Festival, another of the best events of the year - superb range of beers, even though it was a bit busy and we were rather tired. We stayed at Ian's house in Berkhampsted. Yesterday he cooked us a splendid macaroni cheese and today he got up at 6am to make us porridge! It's been raining hard all day, so the drive up here was a bit painful. But at least it makes for a good weekend to spend hunched over the chess table.

British Championship disappointment
I never finished the story of the British Championship, for which I apologise; probably never got around to it owing to the trauma of the last round. In brief, I went along to the final round in joint first place on 3.5/4. I was on board 2 playing an ungraded player, which is always a dodgy thing to find yourself up against in the bottom section. Turned out, of course, that he was very good - we got into a complex position. I got a pawn up, but then blundered , retaking a piece with the wrong piece and going material down. The players on board 1, the other joint leaders, inspected my position and agreed a draw. I ended up losing, though gallingly I also missed a chance to retake the material back shortly afterwards. It's funny how often that happens when one makes a mistake - I need to keep looking harder for opportunities after I've made a mistake.

And so, I didn't win the British Under 120 championship. Four people tied for first on 4/5 and I ended in joint 5th on 3.5/5. I went to a farmers' market/deli for lunch and laid my plans for next year - I swore to myself there and then to work all season towards one simple goal - to win next year's British. I have decided to treat all games and tournaments until then as merely practice for the Big One. It's a good chance for me too, because next year it's being held in Sheffield which is commutable from where I live - just 25 minutes down the motorway, so I won't have to shell out for accommodation and will have a sort of home advantage I hope.

I went to the closing ceremony and listened to "egghead" CJ De Mooi give the closing speech. It sounds like next year's tournament will be good one, with all the UK top 4 Grandmasters playing, (Adams, Short, McShane and Howell), so it will be a good one to be at. I will write some more about chess goals for the year in a later post.

Good start to the new season
The new chess season started for me last Wednesday with a league game. The organiser of the West Bretton club sadly died and so the West Bretton club has merged with Netherton, whom I play for - we now have 3 teams out of the 7 in the Huddersfield League! Wednesday saw our 'C' team whom I turn out for, take on the 'B' team in the village hall. We were pretty outgraded on every board. I was playing a young girl who had a Yorkshire grade of 127, considerably higher than my 114; but it was even worse than it sounds - I checked the English Chess website on there and discovered that on that site, she's graded 139 based on 51 games. So it was a tough game for me.

I haven't got time to write about it now because I have to get off to my first round game, but the good news is that, having struggled most of the game, and being in moderate time trouble (I had to make 9 moves in 5 minutes, which is nothing by Russell Goodfellow's standards but it felt pressured to me), I managed to find a tactic which won me a Rook and pawn for a Knight, and got the Queens off - which meant I went into an ending completely winning. I managed to win the ensuing King and Pawn end-game and was the only one from our team who won a game. As a 139, she was my highest-rated victim ever, so it was a good confidence-boost.

Right, better get off to round 1. I'm sorry this is rushed, but I wanted to get it written before tonight's game. I will try and update the journal quicker than I managed last season!

British Championship - part 3

Today finds me in the jury waiting room at Leeds Crown Court where I am doing my jury service, waiting to be called. Plenty of time for chess training and an opportunity to update this 'blog.

I got back from Herne Bay in time for the start of the afternoon games. I watched the Grandmaster games for a while until Morgan arrived. There were quite a few well-known names there, but by far the best-known was the British No. 1, Michael Adams. The very best GMs rarely play in the British Championship, so for him to come and play was a real rarety. And he was winning almost all of his games with some ease - brushing aside other Grandmasters whilst playing apparently simple chess. The ease of his wins was causing puzzlement in the commentary room; one theory for it was that his opponents were in such awe that they were self-destructing against him. For instance, Stuart Conquest, who was British Champion two years ago, and is well known for his combative chess, played a strangely subdued opening system against Adams, most unlike his usual style.

When Morgan turned up, I was in the commentary room, watching Andrew Martin's game commentaries. We had a bit of a catch-up and then Morgan took some photos for the chess 'blog he writes. (Which made me think, maybe I should embellish this 'blog with some photos). After watching a few more games, we walked down the hill into town where I had arranged to meet Clive Gross, an old friend of mine - in fact I've known him since primary school. Because he lives in Kent, we don't get to meet too often, so it was a good chance to meet up.

Clive and Morgan are both independent-thinking types, and so I thought they'd probably get on all right, and so it proved. We had a beer in the pub - the same sound old pub I'd met the backgammon players in the previous evening - and then went for a vegetarian curry round the corner. We went back to the pub and then Clive headed off to drive back home. Morgan and I had another beer, and then parted ways - he walked back to the railway station to get a train back to London and I went back to my b&b.

I must have fallen asleep straight away, being tired from the chess and the night out. Rather unfortunately, my phone was still on silent, which is how I had set it in the chess hall, so I missed all the calls and texts from Morgan. When I woke up at 6 or so the next morning, I discovered that he'd missed his last train to London, and had been trying to contact me until about 1.30am. I had visions of him having to sleep on a park bench or hitch home, so I hurried to the station to see if there was any sign of him, but the station master said that he'd not seen anyone there when he'd opened up at 5am.

The mystery remained unsolved as I sat down to play game 3.

GAME 3 - Wednesday August 4th
With the Daniels mystery still hanging over me, I wasn't really in the mood for a game of chess. I was paired against an older chap. Someone else had told me that "he comes at you" and so it proved. Without bothering to get his King safe, he launched his Kingside pawns up the board towards my King. It is not normally sound chess to do that before properly developing your pieces and ensuring your own King is safe, but it can be frightening to face a pawn storm like that, and in the past I have panicked and played badly against unsound attacks, so I needed to proceed with caution. This kind of game was the last thing I needed when already a bit discombobulated about the Daniels Mystery.

Fortunately, I knew how to respond to these kind of wing attacks, which is to open up lines and counter-attack in the centre, and I managed to do that. His attack petered out after a while, and his King was exposed in the centre of the board, giving me plenty of chances to counter-attack. Eventually, I managed to wrap the game up. I was pleased with how the game had gone, for a couple of reasons - particularly because in the past I have struggled against attacks like that, so it was pleasing to have been so solid and seen it off.

Now I was on 2.5/3, so would be among the front-runners the next day. I went back to the b&b and checked my 'phone which I'd left there, and found a message from Morgan to the effect that in the end he had got a taxi home - apparently he managed to negotiate the driver down to £100 for the fare, which could have been worse I suppose. Probably better than sleeping the night on a park bench anyway!

I had some scampi in a pub for lunch and spent the afternoon, as ever, watching the Grandmaster games and listening to Andrew Martin's commentary. In the evening, I met another old friend I've not seen for a good few years, Richard Carter. He was a close friend at University, but we'd not seen much of one another for a good few years - Kent is a bit out of the way after all - so it was good to catch up again. We met in the Parrot, the same pub I'd been to the two other nights, and had a drink, and then went for a Mexican meal in a restaurant in the town centre. It was a nice evening, and I think Richard managed to get home all right at the end of it!

British Championship - part 2

GAME 1, MONDAY AUG 2ND

I drove back to Canterbury rather nervous about my prospects, after that poor warm-up. The journey went well and I got back to the venue in good time. I looked at the draw and saw that fortune had smiled on me, finally, as I’d been given a very good draw indeed, against a lower-rated player whom I’d beaten quite easily at Scarborough. It’s critical in these events to get off to a good start, and here was my opportunity.

I was White and the game was a Queen’s Gambit Declined. This is a solid opening I hardly ever lose with, but often have problems forcing a win. And I really wasn’t in the market for a draw, since I needed a good start to the tournament.

For well over an hour, my opponent, Andrew Camp, played good solid chess. I made a slight mistake early on, carelessly allowing him to fork my Queen and Bishop with his Knight, forcing me to give up the good Bishop, but I managed to make the best of it, and could take advantage of his Knight being missing to station my Knight powerfully in the centre of the board. Just when things were looking level and I was starting to consider having to accept a draw, he made a bad mistake and allowed me to get a Knight fork of my own, winning his Rook for my Knight.

After that, it was a mopping-up operation, because his Bishop was blocked in with his own pawns, and my Rooks were on open files, so it was easy to finish up the win. I had a chat to him afterwards, very sound man indeed – turns out that he met his current partner because he was her daughter’s school chess teacher. All three of them – him, her and the little girl, are here playing in the championships.

I went to the Gulbenkian theatre (where I am now sitting writing this) for my lunch, a sausage and cheese Panini and a pint, and then went and spent the afternoon wandering around the Grandmaster games and sitting and listening to Andrew Martin doing the commentary. This is how I have spent every afternoon here.

I checked into my B&B, which is really very good indeed. It’s a house on a fairly busy road about half-an-hour’s walk from here, and it’s one of the best-run and most well-organised B&B’s I’ve ever stayed in. My room is very small, just a box room, but excellent value for money as a result. The owners are full of great ideas for nice little touches – for instance they let people eat take-away food in the restaurant, and the rooms have corkscrews and bottle-openers provided. I had brought a bottle of wine and on my 2nd day I noticed they’d left a wine-glass in my room. The breakfasts are very good too – more than the usual range of choices of just the normal greasy breakfast. I have had the smoked haddock with poached eggs – and they have delights like prunes and marmite available which suits me. So if anyone ever has to stay in Canterbury in the future, I can recommend the Four Seasons B&B.

Monday night, I walked down the hill from the chess venue and had a meal in a Wetherspoons pub, before going to a pub recommended by the B&B owner, the Parrot, which was a very sound traditional old English pub near the Cathedral – half-timbered medieval building, serving nice Kentish Ales. I got talking to a very nice couple who were on a cycling tour, and we had a game of dominoes, in which I came last! It turned out they they (like me) had been to Nottingham University, and both were PhDs – his was in medieval pottery kilns and hers was in the GPS system.

I went back to my B&B and went to bed.

GAME 2, TUESDAY AUG 3rd

After a light breakfast, I drove back to the venue, to find out that the draw hadn’t been so kind to me on day 2 – I was Black against one of the strongest players in the event, a young bloke rated 133. Controversially, this is a under-120 event, but people entered using last year’s grades, which expired in July, so some of them are now rated above 120. Russell Goodfellow, predictably, is furious about it, and has referred to the ECF in terms not appropriate for this ‘blog because of that. I can see their reasons, but it’s rather annoying to have to play someone so strong in what is supposed to be an under-120 event. Even more ludicrously, there was a junior rated 145 in the weekend event Colin and I had played in, who unsurprisingly won all five of his games.

Anyway, there was nothing for it but to knuckle down and try and make the most of what was a tough draw. He was a big, solid, bloke who looked like a rugby player and was clearly going to be a seriously tough proposition. Fortunately for me, he allowed me to play one of my favourite openings – a main-line Benko Gambit, at which I have had some very good results. It’s a good opening because it contains a ready-made plan (attack on the a and b files) which means you are less likely to drift in the middle-game.

I reached a fairly comfortable position in the middle-game as a result, typical Benko position – a pawn down, but totally solid and with domination on the a and b files. Several pieces came off, then I made a move which I thought was good, but then I realised lost a pawn – he was clearly very sharp at tactics and immediately saw the refutation of my plan. I had to give the pawn up, going 2 pawns down, but then – flukily – saw there was an immediate way to regain the pawn. People say there’s no luck in chess, but there is, because I hadn’t calculated this position, but once the dust settled I realised I was getting my pawn back. He played very fast and was a long way up on the clock, but I managed to keep enough time to avoid time problems as the endgame proceeded.

He still had a passed a-pawn, but was tying up pieces defending it, so in the end he gave it up in an attempt to lure my remaining pieces off-side and attack on the other wing. Happily for me, I was able to see his plan and the tactics, and re-centralise my Knight in time. Eventually everything got swapped off until we only had a King and a pawn each left and we called it a draw.
He was very complementary about how I’d played – he obviously expected an easier time, given my rating. I was very pleased – I thought this was one of my best results, and 1.5/2 left me handily placed for the rest of the tournament since I’d already played probably the best player in the section. And since then he’s had two wins, which proves the point.

After the game, I drove to Herne Bay for a look around. It’s a place I’ve never been to but knew about because it’s where Jeeves goes for his annual holiday (for the shrimping!). I took some photos of the beach and had a beer and a cheese salad roll and some mince pies. The sun was out and it was quite pleasant, though Herne Bay proved to be a rather an unprepossessing place – low-key and low-brow, but not as grotty as places like Blackpool.

I went back to the tournament where I was going to meet Morgan Daniels who wasn’t playing, but was coming along to watch some Grandmaster games and take some photos for his own chess ‘blog.

British Championship - part 1

The new chess season is upon us after a three month break. There was one tournament back in May which I never got round to writing about – it was at Halifax and I did all right with 1 win, 1 loss and 2 draws. The draws were against much stronger players, so I was fairly happy with that.

I managed to finish 4th in the National Under-120 Grand Prix, which is mainly a reward for people who play in a lot of tournaments. At the end of July, the new ratings were published, and I had gone up 16 points from 98 to 114. It was rather a case of going from a dreadful rating to a merely poor one, but the increase was reasonably good at least.

Since then I’ve been doing other things, including a holiday with Michelle in the Hebrides and Southern Scotland, walking and visiting distilleries, a 26 mile walk in the Malvern Hills and three weeks working in India. Some interesting and enjoyable times, and it was nice to have a break from chess, especially after 6 tournaments in 6 weeks during the spring.

I’m now at the University of Kent in Canterbury, for the British Championships, the biggest tournament of the year. There are numerous sections for players of all standards and ages. A seniors championship with grizzled old men hunched over the board, and under 9 and under 10 tournament where the players’ legs don’t reach the floor.

I came down here last Friday for an under-125 weekend tournament. The intention was to use it as a warm-up for the British Under 120 next week.

Colin came down for it as well. I drove down from Nottingham where I was working. The drive took 5 hours, owing to Friday traffic and a crash on the M25, so I was glad we’d decided to take a “travelling bye” that night. We watched the games a bit and then went for a beer and some dinner.

The campus is quite pleasant and self-contained with lots of halls and lecture theatres, all quite modern, clustered in a small area, on top of a hill overlooking the ancient city of Canterbury. It took us a while to find our bearings because it’s quite a maze. We were staying in student accommodation on campus, which was clean and comfortable, though perhaps a bit pricey for what it was, especially considering no-one serviced the rooms. Breakfast was served in a monastic-style self-service refectory which was full of chess players, pilgrims and people on a biology course.

The tournament is being held in the University sports hall, a rather echo-y and uninspiring venue with large industrial fans buzzing away all the time during the games. The Grandmasters play on a raised dais at one end of the hall, with video screens showing the position. The rest of the hall is full of people playing in all the different events. There is a daily commentary on the Grandmaster games in a side hall, where you can watch GM’s commentate on the games as they go on.

The games themselves over the weekend were undistinguished, on my part at least. I had two draws on Saturday – one against the person who beat me at St Albans, who is rated a lot lower than me, and another where I missed a clear win in the endgame. In fact, I was behind in both games and had to fight back to get draws. Brendan O’Gorman suggested that I was suffering from having had a long lay-off. Maybe it was a case of getting back into the chess groove again. Russell Goodfellow turned up at lunchtime and we had a pint in the pub.

On the Saturday night, Colin and I went back to the pub. He was on a diet – just started – but managed to fit in the odd light snack and fried breakfast which are apparently allowed with this diet. Beer seemed to be acceptable as well! We had a couple of beers and looked at the games.

Sunday didn’t go too well either. We had breakfast and came to the venue and I found that I’d been drawn against Peter Brace, who is one of the readers of this ‘blog, very sound man indeed and fellow-battler in the lower reaches of the amateur circuit. Unfortunately, the game didn’t detain us for too long. I got into quite a good position out of the opening, and then promptly blundered away a piece on move 12. I couldn’t bring myself to turn over my King in front of everyone so early, so went into the balcony and watched from above until Peter left the room and then resigned in private. I don’t lose many games at the moment but when I do, it tends to be a spectacular blow-up in the opening. You will remember my 8 move defeat at Coulsdon and my 9 move implosion at Nottingham. It seems that once I’m into the game, I usually manage to do all right, but can be vulnerable at the outset.

Meantime Colin, who had also imploded spectacularly in round 1, losing in 10 moves and resigning loudly and publicly by flicking his King into the stratosphere, was on a killer roll with back-to-back wins on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. He had sworn to quit chess on the Saturday lunchtime, and by Sunday lunchtime it was me saying I was going to withdraw from all forms of chess after my dreadful performance.

Sunday afternoon’s game was, for me, a dreary affair – I hate last-round games when there’s nothing to play for; there seems no point in playing. I knocked out a few desultory moves against some draver who seemed intent on playing the dullest system possible. I spent most of the time away from the board, watching other games and wandering around. I resolved to offer him a draw on move 20, and so I did, which he accepted with alacrity. So I ended up on a very mundane 2/5, with three draws against players rated below me and one loss in 12 moves. A dreary performance indeed. Colin continued to go from strength to strength, with a good win the last round against a strong junior, ending on 3.5/5 for a share of fourth place, just outside the prize money. So he was in a good mood anyway!

We headed off after the game was over. I was going to Croydon to spend the night at my parents’ house. The weekend tournament had been intended as a warm-up for the main event, the British under-120 Championship, but as it turned out, the preparation was less than ideal. I spent the night in Croydon with my parents and Aunt Vall, who was visiting, and then on Monday had to drive back to Canterbury again for the British Championship proper, hoping I could somehow find a return to form.

Hereford tournament

Last weekend I managed to win only the second chess tournament of my career, after Kilkenny in 2005, though it was a fairly minor achievement since there were only 7 players in the Minor section, and I managed to score 5/5 but only actually had two good wins.


Hereford is evidently a lucky chess town for me though since I have had my two best results of the season there - last August I managed a 4.5/6 in a fairly strong tournament.


This time the event was being staged in the Green Dragon hotel, an old inn right in the centre of town. It was one of the Castle Chess events organised by an enterprising individual called Tony Corfe.


Friday 23rd April

I took the Friday off work - my plan was to drive down first thing in the morning. There was a bit of a scare the night before when I couldn't get my fuel cap off, so couldn't fuel the car. Not having any internet access at the moment meant a quick call to Michelle who was able to look it up on google and save the day.


I didn't manage to get going as early as I wanted - in the end I left at about 08h30 and got to Great Malvern by 11h00. My plan was to fit in a walk for a few hours - in a couple of months I am going to attempt the "Malvern Marathon", a 26-mile walk along the hills, so its good to get a little training. I had a pint in the Malvern Hills Hotel and then walked for two hours - up to the top of the British Camp, an iron age hill fort, and then along the ridge through woods and past quarries to Midsummer Hill which is a bronze age fortification. The climbs were quite stiff and the views were good. It was a pleasant, sunny day so the walk was enjoyable.


I returned to the Hotel in time for a roast pork sandwich and then drove to Kington where I was staying in a bed and breakfast place I had stayed at a few weeks earlier when in the area walking bits of Offa's Dyke.


In the evening I drove to the nearby village of Eardisland to meet Peter who was an old RAF friend of my Father's, who used to be a museum curator in London but moved out to rural Herefordshire upon retirement. He is 80 now but still very energetic.


He is also an ex-club chess player - played for years in the civil service league, though he only plays casually now. He lives in a cottage by the river that runs through the pretty village. His place has no TV, an open fire, and there are piles of books everywhere - lots of books on chess, nature and history. He also has a very impressive wine cellar and collection of malt whiskies.


He laid on a splendid dinner of smoked salmon, lamb cutlets and vegetables, and raspberries with yoghurt. We talked about family history, and chess. Sadly, I wasn't able to sample more than a couple of glasses of wine from his cellar, but he did crack out a very good chateauneuf du pape.


Went back to the B&B and went to bed straight away.


Saturday 24th April

dawned bright and sunny although I wasn't around to witness it, since I didn't get up until gone 7am. I had a nice breakfast of cereals, fruit and toast with home-made marmalade, and a pleasant chat to the two ladies who run the place. Then I drove into Hereford. Eventually found somewhere to park without having to pay too much for the privelige, and walked to the venue. I got there just in time though there was no sign of Colin yet. My parents were also, coincidentally, in Hereford visiting a friend, and they were going to come along and say hello. This was to be their first-ever visit to a chess tournament, which made it rather unfortunate that it was about the smallest tournament I've ever played in, with only 40 players across all three sections.


Game 1 - rematch against Ashwin
There were only 7 players in our section, and I was less than overjoyed to see that in round 1, I had been drawn against the young Indian boy with whom I had drawn the Saturday night game in Nottingham the week before. I had had slightly the better of that game, but playing children is always hard work and so I didn't relish the prospect of a rematch.

The early part of what turned out to be another close battle was rather disturbed by the fact that I was trying to work out where Colin was, and then when he did turn up I was waiting for my parents' visit. They arrived when I was half-way through playing Ashwin, so I popped in and out to talk to them and their friend Jean. They seemed fairly interested in their first chess tournament anyway.

I should mention that the game was being played in a very nice function room in the pleasant Green Dragon hotel, a very nice and civilised venue.

My parents headed off. The game against Ashwin went on a very long time, but eventually in the endgame he made a mistake, getting his Rook boxed in with pawns, and I was able to exchange into a winning King and Pawn ending.

Colin won his game too, rather more easily, also against a junior.

I talked to the organiser and asked that Colin and I not be drawn against one another if possible. It is a bit difficult in such a small section, but I hate playing my friends and Colin feels the same.

Game 2 - drawn against Colin
We went out to the pub for a bite of lunch - and came back to find that we'd been drawn against each other!

Prior to the game there was a "players' review" where you could talk to the organiser about the format of the tournament and suggest ideas for future events. He said that he had made a loss on this event and would probably not be holding another of them.

After this, I went and told him that Colin and I had agreed a draw without playing, because we are friends and we never play each other. However, he wouldn't allow us to agree a draw without playing - he said there was a new chess rule which said that pre-arranged draws had to be marked as zero for both players, and that it was necessary to play 30 "meaningful" moves in all games. He came up to Colin's room to discuss it since Colin was up there.

Colin was even more reluctant to play than I was, but he controller, whilst being reasonable and understanding was adamant that we had to play one another. The problem wasn't helped by the fact that the section was so small - only 7 players - so it was always going to be hard for us to avoid playing one another.

Anyway, we reluctantly agreed to play. Neither of us was remotely up for it. We both know how chess games can destroy friendships and we both value our friendship far more than any chess game. The game began and it became evident that Colin wasn't remotely up for it. He made wild, sacrificial moves. I turned down his sacrifices, and we soon got into a wild and strange position with pieces hanging all over the board. It became hard not to giggle. I had to keep turning laughs into coughs, and at one point went and got a brandy. Colin seemed determined to give his pieces away, and eventually after a while he just knocked his King over. Clearly he hadn't been at all enthusiastic about playing and I could take absolutely no pleasure in this "win". But at least we hadn't fallen out over it as we would have if we had played a serious game.

Since that game didn't take very long, we had a good 3 hour break before the next game, so I took Colin up to Great Malvern where I am going to be walking the marathon in a few weeks. We took a rather circuitous route but got there all right, and parked near the top, then walked up to the Worcestershire Beacon which is the highest point of the hills. Colin claimed to be unfit but seemed to have no problems tackling quite a steep hill. The views from the top are spectacular. We made it back in time for round 3. We had been going to take a bye on the Saturday night, but since game 2 had been such a wash-out, Colin wanted to play the Saturday game.

Game 3 - another flukey undeserved victory
I was drawn against a chap rated 77, but he played much better than that. The game proceeded for some 20 moves into a very stodgy, locked position. I was trying to break things open, and, as I often do, made a mistake trying to drum up some activity. I went a pawn down and got into a fairly bad position to boot.

At least I carried on fighting and trying to make it hard for him. The game went on and on, into the ending. Colin drew his game and most of the games around us finished too - eventually we were the last board still playing, and my position was still rubbish despite the consumption of two beers. I gloomily confronted the prospect of defeat.

The only glimmer of hope was that he was moving very slowly and still taking a long time over his moves even though he was running critically short of time. I was low on time too, but I think I was more pragmatic in my use of the clock than he was.

Eventually he had about 1 minute left and I had about 2, and we had exchanged down to what was a completely won ending for him. The arbiter was watching the game - but he still moved too slolwy, and eventually his flag fell - I had won a totally unjustified victory on time.

The chap seemed a bit dazed, and he wasn't even sure of what the result was. I felt pretty bad. I was on 3/3 but since the last two won games were both totally undeserved it didn't feel like cause for celebration.

Colin was hungry but all the Indian restaurants had closed by this point. We ended up going to a rather dubious Chinese take-away with some eat-in plastic tables. I had a hot and sour soup and a vegetable curry - Colin blew his £5 a day budget by spending £15 on about twice as much food as he could cope with, which he felt bad about later, though I did point out that it was still only half what we'd normally have spent getting an Indian meal.

We were pretty tired, so went back to the hotel and turned in without further ado.

Sunday 25th April

Game 4 - a better result
Breakfast was included in the package, so we stocked up before the first round began.

In game 4, I finally played quite well again. I was playing the chap Colin had drawn with the previous night, a very friendly and pleasant man from Northern Ireland. He had complimented Colin profusely in his play in their game, and had even bought me and him beers!

He played his own system as White against the Shveshnikov, which to be honest I didn't particularly rate because it left him a pawn down and with a horrible pawn structure including isolated and doubled d-pawns. The system depended on me grabbing a second pawn, giving him lots of activity, but I could simply avoid that by declining to take the second pawn - I was happy being a pawn up and just concentrated on development.

Applying these simple principles (which admittedly I've often failed to do in the past) stood me in good stead and his weak pawns left me a nice target to aim at. I just kept things tight and eventually the game proved quite easy to win from there. Once again, he was very generous and magnanimous after the game.

Colin won his game as well. I now had won the tournament - I was on 4/4 and the next best score, including Colin's, was 2.5.

Since there were only 7 in the section, someone had to have a full point bye in each round and in the final round it had to be either me or Colin since everyone else had had a bye. Colin was keen to play his last round, and I was perfectly happy not to, since I had already won the event.

So I sat out the last round, and Colin played the bloke I'd struggled to beat on time the previous night - and he beat him also, after looking like he was losing. We concluded that that bloke is very good at getting into good positions, but lacked the pragmatic mindset just to finish games off.

Meantime I had a nice walk around the Cathedral and mooched around the tournament hall.

Eventually, it was all over and we attended the final prize-giving. It was nice to win a tournament after so long, but it has to be said that it was a fairly minor achievement since I'd only really played well in 2 games. A fairly low-key ending to the tournament. We said our goodbyes and I headed off on the long and weary drive home. First I went to my Sister's place in Oxfordshire to have dinner and say hello, then on to East Midlands airport to meet Michelle who was coming to visit, then finally on home at 1am.

Wednesday 28th April

Victory for Netherton B
Our B team, which I play for, had got to the final of the handicap knock-out, quite a good result even with the handicapping system, and we were to play mighty Huddersfield.

I had been tired all week after the exertions of Sunday, and on Wednesday morning had dropped Michelle back off at East Midlands after her flying visit (necessitated by my planned visit to Berlin the previous weekend being cancelled due to volcanic ash). I had to raise myself for the final, being played at Huddersfield.

With the handicap, we only needed 3/6 to win the match, and it started very well for us with good quick wins for Jonathan Morton on board 5 and Craig Thompson on board 2 against a much higher-rated player. Once we got another draw, I knew we only needed half a point to lift the trophy, so I promptly offered my opponent a draw.

My game had been fairly dreary and low-key on board 6, but I was at least slightly ahead - a pawn up in a Knight and Pawn ending. Given the match situation, maybe my opponent should have played on, but he took the draw and so we won the cup.

This weekend my final tournament of the season is taking place in Halifax. As I write on Friday afternoon, my participation is in doubt since I have a bit of a cold and am not really feeling up for it after so much chess. Russell Goodfellow is coming up to play in it, so I might just attend in the capacity of a spectator.

Another disappointing tournament

Saturday, April 17th

With my weekend visiting Michelle in Berlin cancelled, I drove down the M1 to Nottingham to take part in the Nottingham Congress. It's the UK congress I've competed in the most often, having previously taken part in 2006, 2007 and last year.

I left early because I had not entered in advance, and wanted to be there in good time to get my entry in. It was a sunny spring morning when I parked my car in the free park and ride car park near the venue and walked across the daffodil-strewn Forest Recreation Ground to the venue at the Nottingham High School for boys. Its the same venue as last year, but a much nicer hall - last year us bottom-feeders were shunted into a small and dreary classroom, but this year everyone was fitted into an airy and pleasant hall which evidently had once been a courtyard and had recently been roofed over.

'Blog readers Peter Brace and Brendan O'Gorman were both playing and there were other familiar people to say good morning to including Richard Desmedt.

This year the grading sections had not been amended for the new grades, and so the bottom section was a relatively enticing-looking Under-110 where I thought I would have a good chance of winning some money and even, if things worked out well, winning my first tournament for five years.

The first day I played three uninspiring but solid games which don't merit much attention. I ended up with one win and two draws - yet again the bottom section proved a bit of a minefield with talented juniors and unpredictable ungraded players. These categories of players are even more unpredictable at this time of year, 10 months since the last grades were produced.

Game 1 -
I was playing a young bloke in his 20s, ungraded and playing in his first tournament, but who was clearly no mug. I knew that as soon as he confidently banged out the first 9 moves of the Sveschnikov Sicilian. I, as black, had slightly the better of the whole game, getting doubled rooks on the h-file and a pawn up just after the time control. I mistakenly swapped an active Bishop for his inactive one, thinking the ending was won, but it turned out he could repeat the position and a draw was agreed.

I had a nice luncheon sandwich (cheddar and home-made chutney) and a pint of local real ale in the Bell Inn, a sound old historic Inn in the city centre. The weather being nice, the park next to the venue was pretty with spring flowers - rather less attractive were the big groups of people showing rather too much flesh in most cases. By evening the park was completely covered in litter - people are disgusting sometimes.

Game 2-
My opponent didn't show, so I was re-paired against a junior, rated 73. I was very nervous, knowing how strong these juniors can be, but as it turned out, his heart was never in it. He blundered regularly and I won quickly.

Having over two hours to wait untill the evening game, I went back to the Bell, drank beer slowly and read my book. I had an enjoyable pork steak and walked back via Corporation Oaks, a hilltop reservoir surrounded by Victorian houses which is one of my favourite features in Nottingham.

Game 3 -
Another low-graded junior, this time an earnest bespectacled Indian boy of about 9 whose feet didn't reach the floor when he was sitting at the chessboard. It was a dreary Colle, and nothing much happened all game. He tried to win my Queen with a sneaky tactic but I spotted it and blocked the centre. Then he made a mistake and allowed me a tactic which won a pawn. I took the pawn and with the Queens off he started losing interest and offered me a draw several times. Eventually I accepted it since the position offered him a lot of counterplay.

I had a chat afterwards to him and his Mother, who was keen to know how well he had played.

So one easy win and two drawn games both of which I had been a pawn up in, not a bad day's work, though I should have worked harder to convert those two draws. At least I was finished at 8.15pm, which was a good thing since I had a 65 mile drive home.

Sunday, April 18th

Disaster strikes in round 4
Another bright sunny day, and as I arrived at the venue I was relatively confident since I thought I'd played solidly yesterday. Yet again I had been drawn against an ungraded junior, this time an Asian teenager in a stripey jumper.

He played a bit of an offbeat gambit, which I knew a good trap against, and he walked into it, but then I made colossal blunder and all my weekend's work was undone in an instant.

Here are the notes on the game that I have already written for some readers of this 'blog:

Up there with all my worst defeats of all time was yesterday's game vs Radhav Sudarshan, an ungraded 13 year old Indian (who was obviously quite a decent player because he ended up on 4/5). This defeat is so dreadful because the game lasted so few moves and I had been clearly winning (+3.5 on Fritz).

My opponent made 11 moves, moving only 5 pieces - his Queen 6 times, his King once, one pawn and one bishop and knight! There should be no way that I should lose against such a monumental failure to develop. Here's how I managed to -

Bailey-SudarshanNottingham 2010

1 d4 e5
the Chalick-Englund gambit, a one-trick pony of an opening in which Black neglects development in the hopes that White will stumble into one of the opening traps. I know the traps though and a good counter-trap.
2 dxe4 Nc6
3 Nf4 Qe7
4 Bf4 Qb4+
5 Nc3!? Qxf4?
played instantaneously, clearly thinking I'd blundered a Bishop
6 Nd5!
I banged that out and then headed off for a cup of tea, enjoying the discomforture on my opponent's face. 6 .. Qf5
7 Nxc7+ Kd8
8 Nxa8
I've had this position before, and whilst the computer considers White winning, there is an issue re getting the Knight out of the corner. Rapid development is crucial.
8 .. Nb4
9 Nd4 Qxe5
at about this point his friend came over and my opponent gave him a wry "I've messed this up" sort of a look.
10 c3 Qb8!?
a devious move on his part - he spotted that I couldnt take the b4 knight and wanted to tempt me into taking it, but didn't want to make me suspicious as I would have been if he'd simply left it there. The only problem is that if I didn't fall into his trap he is losing.
11 cxb4??
played without thinking. A moment's consideration of the move, a simple examination of all available checks would have shown me that this was disastrous. After my equally calamitous round 4 performance the week before at St Albans, I had chatted to Brendan about the importance of examining every check, and yet we both remarked upon the exceptional difficulty in doing that simple task. He told me he'd tried all sorts of things to make himself do it, and even then, he, a strong player, can't manage it. If I had checked for two seconds, this game was won and the tournament was on track. As it was, i was within minutes of withdrawing from the tournament.

One tiny oversight, in other words, ruined my entire weekend. The correct move for me, as I found immediately I looked at the positoin again, is 11 Qb3! preventing the check and threatening Qxf7, and now the computer has White +3.5, winning.

11 .. Bxb4+
White resigns, as the Queen is lost. There was a look of disbelief and relief on my opponents face. After shaking his things I just walked out of the hall without even picking up my bag. Shortly afterwards I came back to withdraw from the tournament and went to the cinema since I was in no shape for another game after that.

I went back to the tournament hall later on to watch the end of the last round. Sudarshan won again to go to 4/5, which was some consolation, and I watched Richard Desmedt draw in an excellent game which went to 92 moves.

Conclusion

So for the second week running, my weekend was ruined by totally messing up the Sunday morning game against, on paper, a weak opponent. I seem to have overcome my round 1 hoodoo only to have replaced it with a round 4 hoodoo which is even worse because after playing well for three games you start to have hope, before the familiar despair returns.

I have now played four tournaments in four weeks, and in every one of them there has been one disastrous, easily-avoidable defeat -

• Huddersfield - missing a mate in 1 for me, and then losing against John Eddershaw, overpressing.
• Coulsdon - losing in 9 moves after neglecting development against c3 sicilian
• St Albans - missing a mate by a 59-rated opponent who thought he'd blundered a pawn
• Nottingham - missing a move which losdt the Queen, when I was winning.

There are similiarities between all of these games. In all of them I was winning, or ahead, and in all of them, the thing I missed should have been very easy to spot and then the game could have continued with me ahead. Its not as though I was really outplayed in any of them.

Blunder checking
Lots of advice has come in about the importance of blunder checking, which would, if applied successfully, have allowed me to avoid all these defeats. I know all about how important it is to check for captures and checks on every move, and I often remember to do it (when its a quiet position and it doesn't matter), but as soon as things get tense or exciting, I forget to do it.

Dave Stephenson made it sound as though its the easiest thing in the world to remember, but more encouragingly, as strong a player as Brendan O'Gorman told me he has problems remembering to check - he says that for a time he tried putting a dot on his scoresheet before moving, as a way to remind himself to check, until an opponent asked him to stop because it's technically against the rules to mark the scoresheet.

One idea I had after that discussion is to start carrying a small pebble and to transfer it from pocket to pocket - you're not allowed to move until you move the pebble and you don't move the pebble until you've done the check. I may start doing that at Hereford.

Withdrawing early
There has also been some comment about the fact that after the disasters at St Albans and Nottingham I withdrew before the final round. The general feeling seems to be that one should bounce back and play the last game.

My feeling on this is, firstly, if it was a tournament where I had hopes of winning, then I have no real enthusiasm for playing a "dead" game at the end which might get me to 3/5 if I win. There's nothing to play for and the games have a sterile feel to them. I have had some easy wins in final rounds, actually, because obviously my opponents can't be bothered either.

Secondly, after a really bad, humiliating defeat like those in round 4 at both St Albans and Nottingham, I just don't want to play chess. There are a lot better things to do on a Sunday afternoon than slogging over an irrelevant chess game, and of course being out of sorts after a bad defeat just makes another loss more likely.

The example of Russell Goodfellow is instructive - he always withdraws from tournaments once he can't win money. I wouldn't go that far, but in circumstances like these I can see little point in continuing to play.

Minor Sections
These experiences have shown again that bottom sections of tournaments are not necessarily easy, and can be full of dangerous pitfalls in the shape of juniors and ungraded players - especially at this time of the year when everyone's grade is almost a year out of date.

In many ways, I've played better this year when I've been in tough sections (the under-145 at Kidlington comes to mind). Then it's me that is the underdog and playing players rated 130+ have played badly against me because they are the ones thinking "this bloke has got a rubbish rating, this should be easy".

The burden of expectation can be hard. Maybe I should play in higher sections all the time. I'd have no chance of prize money but on the plus side I wouldn't lose to any more ungraded juniors or 59s. And I wouldn't have the distraction of expecting to get prize money or win a tournament. But on the other side of the coin, the tantalising prospect of the glory of a tournament victory is something I'd hate to give up forever. If I did play up in harder sections I'd be forever condemned to mid-table anonymity, at best. Tough decision.

A year of the 'blog
This 'blog is a year old now - I wrote my first entries for the Nottingham tournament twelve months ago. When I started out it was to be for one year only , and the intention was to force myself to improve by writing about my experiences. I also set out a number of "precepts" which I was going to follow to try and achieve that.

To some extent, both these goals have succeeded. I am getting (marginally) better results than I did a year ago, and my grade will be going up around 10 points. I have managed to stick to the precepts I set myself, and some of them are now probably out of date. Succeeding in solving one set of problems, instead of being the road to glory, has merely allowed me to see another set of issues I have to solve. I clearly need another set of precepts.

In my next entry, I will go through the precepts, and set myself a new set to follow for the next year ahead. But this entry is probably long enough already!

Things go awry at St Albans

Saturday April 10th

Last weekend was the St Albans tournament. This is the first time I've played in this particular event - 2 years I went along but didn't play and last year for some reason I was unavailable. The venue had changed from the boys' school next to the Cathedral to another boys' school on the other side of the Cathedral, a Catholic school I was pleased to note.

I drove down on the Saturday morning to save one night's bed and breakfast cost. This particular event is quite civilised in starting at 10am instead of the more usual 9.30 and I left home at about 6.00 and was there in good time. I managed to drive at a sedate pace and got about 70 miles per gallon which is good, in keeping with the money-saving tenor of our times.

I turned up early at the venue. It was a large hall in the school and quite airy. There was a terrace with a nice view over the Roman ruins of Verulamium to the Cathedral.

Russell Goodfellow was playing in this event too and he turned up just before play started.

Game 1 - good result against an old opponent

My first round opponent was Mark Silman whom I'd drawn with in round 1 at Bury St Edmunds. I probably should have won that game but I messed up several winning chances and he managed to force a draw. He was a good opponent though, and here at St Albans was one of the top seeds in my section. At Bury he had reminded me a bit of Lovejoy, the TV antiques dealer played by Ian McShane, with long curly hair and a leather jacket, but now his hair was cut shorter.

This turned out to be one of the best games of my career to date - I hardly put a foot wrong. I saw a nice tactic in the opening phase to win a Knight for a pawn, and then managed to force the Queens off and closed out the ending efficiently by opening lines at the right time. Overall I was very pleased with the result especially as it was against a good player. And a nice turnaround from my usual game 1 hoodoo.

Afterwards we had a chat and a cup of tea and then I went to the pub with Russell who had also won his round 1 game. The pub was just round the corner and proved to have nice real ales on offer.

Game 2 - in which I almost muck up another game against John Eddershaw

In game 2, battle was resumed against John Eddershaw. Attentive readers will recall that he is the man against whom I managed to lose a totally won game at Huddersfield two weeks ago. He is another person I played at Bury St Edmunds, where I'd beaten him fairly easily. So it was honours even between the two of us though I would say I'd outplayed him overall - I managed to miss a MATE IN ONE at Huddersfield!

This game started off as a very cagey, dreary opening - he was White and if White wants to keep things very tight ("stodgy" as Dave Stephenson would say) then it is usually possible. Things went on for about 25 moves with hardly any pieces off the board, until we both had our Rooks and Queens lined up on two different files. I managed to get a pawn up, then two pawns up, but his heavy pieces were menacing my King and suddenly it started to look as though I was getting into difficulties. I always seem to miscalculate when my King is under threat, and it was so here - I suddenly made a bad mistake and got completely tangled up. The next thing I knew, I'd lost a Queen for a Rook.

Things started to move rather fast. I think he was suffering from the problem that I often have, where you get into a winning position and then somehow lose focus. The very move after I lost my Queen, I saw that if he made a weak move I had a chance to hit his undefended King and at least win the Queen back again. In something of a daze, he made the exact move I wanted, and two moves later I had checkmated him. It was all very odd indeed.

He must have felt awful but he was pretty decent about it. Turned out he's ex-military. He said it was a fair result because he didn't really deserve to win the game at Huddersfield - which was nice of him, even though it was true!

Game 3 - evening bye

So I was on 2/2, it's been a long time since I managed that. I had decided, after the disaster at Coulsdon, when I lost in 9 moves on the Saturday evening, to take a Saturday night bye, so I watched the start of the games and then went to check into my B&B, which turned out to be about 2 miles from the venue , right across the town. I chatted to the landlady for a bit - nice lady and an impeccable house - I'd even got an upgrade to an en-suite as the other guests had cancelled.

I walked back to the chess via a pub where I stopped for a pint and dinner, an Tyrolean dish of potatoes , bacon and mushrooms. I got back to the venue and watched the end of the games. Russell got into his usual time-trouble, but his opponent got into even worse time-trouble and dropped material in the time scramble. Russell had won all his games and was sitting on top of the leader board on 3/3, so it was a good day for both of us. We celebrated with a couple of beers in the real ale place, before I got a cab back to the b&b - I believe he managed a few more pints though!

Sunday April 11th

Game 4 - disaster strikes

I had checked the draw the night before and seen that I'd been drawn against one of the lowest-rated players in the section. Obviously he was on 2/2 as well, so clearly playing well, but he was only rated 59 (I am 99 and decent players are 130+) so I thought it had to be , on paper, an easy game. I thought maybe that it would be a junior, since they are usual the only ones with such low grades.

I had a good breakfast at the B&B and set out in optimistic mood - always fatal! I got to the venue early and had a walk before the chess started. I walked across the Verulamium park, past the ruins of the Roman camp and round the lake. The sun was out, blossom on the trees, birds twittering, all very nice.

I got back to the venue to discover that I was playing an older man, so I thought that this should not be too hard a task and was already relishing being on board 1 playing for the title in the afternoon.

Fatal of course.

The game started with another dull, manoeuvring position - he was White and played a lineof the Colle. Then it seemed that he had dropped a pawn. He thought he'd dropped a pawn too (this is just like my 9-move defeat at Coulsdon). Since he thought he'd lost a pawn, he just decided to launch an attack and, just like at Coulsdon, it transpired that losing the pawn had helped him because it opened lines and freed his pieces. An unintentional gambit.

Whatever, within about 3 moves I was being checkmated and had to resign. It felt dreadful - a bad loss to a low-ranked player in a game I really thought I could win, with chances of prize money or even winning the tournament gone up in smoke. I was disgusted and appalled with myself - this really ranks with one of my worst, most humiliating defeats.

I felt so bad that I straight away withdrew from the event, not playing the last game. I know that goes against one of the 'blog Precepts, but i was in such a rubbish mood that I'd only have loused up the last game had I played it.

Goodfellow won his game and was on 4/4, guaranteed first place if he drew the last game, so he was very happy - a long-awaited return to form for him.

We had lunch in the pub.

Game 5 - walk in the park

During round 5 I took myself round the park again and also had a look at the Cathedral, which was well worth a visit. It felt a lot better being out on a nice afternoon than playing chess!

Goodfellow got a quick draw and won £250 which made his day, and then things got even better for him as Manchester Citr FC won 5-1.

I said goodbye to him and headed off to stay overnight in Berkhampsted with my colleague Ian Imms who laid on a superb dinner of roast lamb. We went to the pub for a beer afterwards and then got an early night because we both had to leave at 6am to drive back North.

Conclusions

I've played three congresses in three weeks and it's not gone as well as I had hoped. Given that two of them (Huddersfield and St Albans) had easy grading limits, my showing of won 6 drawn 3 lost 4 is nothing special.

Of my six wins -
Huddersfield round 1 was against a very weak player and I still dropped a piece
Huddersfield rounds 3 and 4 were quite good wins
Coulsdon round 2 was against a very weak player
St Albans round 1 was good, round 2 was a total fluke from a lost position

so I can only be pleased with 3 of them.

Of the 4 defeats, three were truly abysmal
Huddersfield round 2 I missed a win by a mate in 1
Coulsdon round 2 I lost in 9 moves
St Albans round 4 was against someone rated 59.

So, overall, despite playing quite well in some games, it was a disappointing performance. On the plus side, I have managed to adhere to the Precepts with which I started this 'blog a year ago, which were mostly to do with the psychological side - not giving up early etc. I think I need to review the Precepts and maybe come up with some new ones to do with not overlooking totally obvious things over the board, which has been the main reason for my recent failures. I will write an entry on this topic shortly.

A volcano intervenes in my plans

On Wednesday, I played the final club game of the year for Netherton v Holmfirth, and I was paired against Normal Battye, against whom I had another of my more memorable defeats a year ago when I managed to lose despite being a Bishop and Rook ahead and with a pawn on the 7th rank poised to promote to a Queen.

I was determined to get my own back for that and atone for the disaster at St Albans and I managed to crush him fairly comprehensively with a display which never gave him a chance. It was nice to get a crushing win for a change!

I had been looking forward to a weekend off chess since I was going to Berlin to see Michelle - much needed rest and recuperation. Sadly the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano and the subsequent grounding of all UK flights has put paid to that plan, so, scouting around for something else to do instead I came up with the brilliant plan -

"I know, I'll play in a chess tournament!".

Makes a change.

So I will be heading to Nottingham tomorrow morning to start again at the chequered board. This was the event last year where I wrote my first 'blog entry, so my original intention of writing for a year has been achieved - time to take stock, which I will be doing in my next entry.

Coulsdon

Friday 2 April

Over Easter, I was in "action" at Coulsdon, a nonedescript suburb in the southern-most part of London. There is a strange venue there which has a lot of chess tournaments - its an evangelical Church hall where the pastor is a big chess fan, so its a strange combination of a chess venue and a Church. There is, for example, a bit tapestry saying "Jesus is the King" but which has a picture of a chess King.

It is not a venue where I have ever done very well, but it does have the one significant virtue of being near my parents' house where I lived as a teenager, so I can go and visit them and get a free place to stay during the tournament.

On this occasion I headed South on the Thursday morning, worked in our Dunstable office, and then drove round the M25 to my parents' house. Friday was also my Sister's 40th birthday. I had made a 40th birthday book and got lots of her friends and family members to write contributions. On the way to my parents' house, I stopped at a pub and wrote my own entry and then handed it over to them to take to her. They were going up to stay at her place in Oxforshire to look after the children so that she and her husband could go away to a spa hotel.

I had dinner at their house, and we got a fairly early night. They were leaving at 6am to drive up to Oxfordshire. I headed off to the chess venue at 9.30. Unusually, there were no friends playing as well. Also, it turned out to be a very tiny tournament - there were only 23 boards in all three sections put together. I decided to regard it just as a good opportunity to get some practice.

Game 1 - Perfect Storm
All the things I don't like came together in one game for me. As you know, I always seem to do worse in the first round - my round 1 hoodoo. I also always play badly against young girls, and I had been drawn against a girl of about 12, albeit with a strong rating (better than mine). When you add in the fact that I've never done well at Coulsdon, the omens were not good for this game. And then to make matters worse she launched off with an opening I don't like, the Grand Prix Sicilian 1 e4 c5 2 Nc3 Nc6 3 f4 which is an aggressive opening I find hard to play against and have been considering using myself as White.

I was pleased with how the game turned out - I managed to find good defensive moves to counter her attack which also offered counter-attacking possibilities and gave her problems to answer herself. When under attack it's not good to get too stuck in a defensive mode, and the best way to respond is usually to try to find a counter attack to take advantage of the fact that they might have overpressed or opened up the position by attacking hard. In the end, after some scary moments, I was in fact slightly better owing to the fact that she had opened up her Kingside and it was she who had to close the centre and offer a draw, which I accepted.

I found a totally empty Thai restaurant with a lunchtime deal , and limited myself to sparkling
water with my Thai red vegetable curry.

Game 2 - Easy Win
Not much needs to be said about this. I was drawn against someone who played for the local Coulsdon club, who was rated only 39, and I ended up with a very easy win. At least I finished it off efficiently. Afterwards he asked me for a couple of friendly games so he could practice.

My friend Grete was coming down to Coulsdon to meet up with me, and I met her at the station. We went to the pub and I had a couple of alcohol-free beers whilst she told me about her new magazine project. She accompanied me back to the venue. She was going to sit and wait for a bit but I did point out that she might be waiting over three hours for the game to finish.

Game 3 - A rapid reverse
When there are three games in a day, I normally take the evening game as a bye, arguing that I don't like to play three times in one day. On this occasion, however, I had decided to try playing three times. This proved to be a mistake as I lost very fast - in only 9 moves. In fact this was my worst defeat probably since Bradford last September. It was rather unfortunate. The opening was a c3 Sicilian and I played my usual line against it. This has had some good results - including my draw vs Richard Desmedt at the local club last December - but I know that you can get into problems because of the open lines you give White. Anyway, this opponent misplayed the opening, giving up a pawn. I wondered if he had sacrificed the pawn on purpose (played a gambit) to gain open lines, but he told me afterwards that he had not. I took the pawn but quickly found myself in all kinds of trouble - losing a Rook in fact, so I resigned on move 9.

Having told Grete the game could take three hours, it was all over in 20 minutes! It did at least mean that she and I could have a bit more of a chat and get something to eat.

I took her to East Croydon station and headed back to my parents' place for an early night.

Saturday 3 April

Game 4 - In which I find a good tactic to save the game
There was already not much to play for in this tournament since I was on 1.5/3 after the previous day's reverse. This morning's game was against an older guy who has apparently been around on the circuit for many years and still plays in a lot of tournaments. The opening was quite a quiet 1 d4 (I was White) and we ended up in a Queen's Gambit Declined. In an interesting sequel to last night's game, I lost a pawn by a blunder, but it turned out that this game me some open lines to attack along in compensation, so I had some opportunities. I managed to get my Rook up the board - I was convinced that there had to be a tactic that would be good for me, and eventually it proved that that instinct was right - after much searching I found a way to win back the pawn. After that the game was about equal; most of the pieces were gone and we were in a level endgame. After we agreed a draw, the bloke on the next board commented that I had been ahead because my Rook was strong and his Queenside Rook and Bishop were undeveloped, but I pointed out that to set against that I had a weak back rank, and the moves I would need to invest to sort that out would allow him to develop his Queenside.

We went through the game afterwards in an upstairs room with a friend of his. Then Russell Goodfellow turned up. He wasn't playing owing to the small size of the event and the hard section limits, but came along for a beer and to collect the duty-free tequila I'd got him. We had a couple of pints and a chat in the local pub.

Game 5 - I have to dig deep to survive
Possibly because of the beer, or possibly because it was a dead last-round game, I played the opening fairly loose and soon found myself in a bit of a pickle against a solid middle-ranking player. In fact I thought I had lost a piece on move 11 and was looking at another very early resignation, but I decided to mix things up and give him a few problems to solve, and as ever this helped to confuse things. At our level players can often get confused by complications, and I managed to escape from the mess losing only a pawn. When I later looked at the game in the computer it confirmed that he had indeed been winning a full piece, so I'm glad that I managed to fight my way out.

In fact I came back to a position where I was level or even ahead in the subsequent end-game - I was a pawn down but with a superior pawn structure. The game dragged on and on. Eventually I did make a mistake and exchanged the last pair of pawns into a lost ending, where my King was stuck on the edge and his King was closer to his remaining pawn, so eventually I lost on move 63, but it was a pretty good effort considering I was staring defeat in the face on move 11. At least I manage to keep fighting on more often these days in positions I used to resign. Make the buggers work for it.

I ended up with a very average 2/5, but I don't feel that I played all that badly - both draws were good hard efforts, one defeat was just a nasty opening and the other was a long hard-fought battle.

I headed back to my parents' place where we had dinner with my Aunt and Uncle. The next day, I headed to my Aunt and Uncle's house, met some of their family including cousins I've not seen in a long time, and then I drove to Reading to see Colin. He is in the throes of a "living on £5 a day campaign", a valiant effort at frugal living, so instead of going out for dinner he cooked us a nice meal, and we sat and went through all my Coulsdon games - as ever, he had plenty of insights to offer. Then we played some "knock-down" blitz games, at which he had a considerable advantage as the evening wore on, since I was drinking wine and he was on the water!

On the Monday I drove back to Leicester where I stayed with Mark Ward, whom I've not seen for ages. He gave me a round 2-0 thrashing at Risk and we had a curry. I stayed overnight at his house and returned home on Tuesday.

Tomorrow I will be heading back down south again for yet another tournament at St Albans. I've not played in this one before, though I did spectate two years ago. I'm hoping to get the fortune that eluded me at Coulsdon, and also to be able to learn the lessons of my recent defeats. Report to follow, as ever.