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.