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.