Galway days 2 & 3 - lots of draws

Day 2

Cooked breakfast
On the Saturday morning Eoghnan's mother made us a traditional fatboy breakfast of sausage, bacon and egg. Good way to prepare for a day's chess. We got to the venue a bit late but the draw had gone wrong, in that fine old tradition of chess tournaments, and so it ended up starting half an hour late.

Game I couldn't win
My game went fairly well - it was a familiar opening and I was soon in a commanding position with my opponents King flushed out into the middle of the board. It was one of those games, however, where I couldn't quite find a way to take advantage and was struggling to turn it into a win. To make matters worse, there was an awkward pin on my Queen's Knight to be considered and my opponent had a fair bit of counterplay. Eventually we both started running out of time. I
blundered and lost a piece but with his King still in the middle and a lot of open lines I got a very strong passed pawn which I was able to use to win 2 pieces and ended up being a piece up - K, Q, R and B vs K, Q, R. Unfortunately however two of my pieces were immobile owing to another pin and so eventually with only a minute or two on the clock I settled for a draw by perpetual check. It wasn't the result I would have wanted but it was a pretty good entertaining and action-packed
game. Morgan had won his game in the Masters. I was sorry to have missed the game because it looked very entertaining, ending up with Morgan mating the chap ("its the first time I've actually checkmated someone for years") when he had 10 seconds left on the clock and the chap had 4 seconds. It was his first win in the Masters section.

We had lunch - rather uninspiring egg salad in the hotel bar and then it was straight into round 3.

Defeat in familiar style
I was playing a rather gloomy-looking young bloke TUrloch Kelly. He played the Grand Prix attack 1 e4 c5 2 f4 which I'm not that familiar with. Thanks to playing through the games of Nigel Fleming I know about about the delayed Grand Prix 1 e4 c4 2 Nc3 Nc6 3 f4 which is generally thought to be better for White but I've never really looked at the Grand Prix itself.

I knew that the best response was 2 .. d5 but after that I was making it up as I went along and the game continued 3 exd5 Qxd5 4 Nc6 Qd8. I later discovered that this is a perfectly playable line despite being a bit dull but that not retaking the pawn is considered better for Black, instead continuing with 3 .. Nf6 then 4 Bb5+ Bd7 5 Bxd7 Nbxd7 6 c4 where Black supposedly
has enough play for the sacrificed pawn, though looking at it on the board now I'm still not sure i can see why. I suppose White's f4 looks a bit pointless now and the King is a bit exposed. Im not sure what I will do next time I face this over the board.

Anyway, I played the exchange. For some reason I never felt comfortable in this game - maybe because I was playing a junior, or maybe because it was an unfamiliar opening, or perhaps it was because he was one of these annoying people who always move really quickly, which always puts me off, but I kept on making slightly inaccurate moves. Soon I found he had a Bishop in the midst of my position and I failed to find a nice way of shifting it that Morgan pointed out to me after the game.

On move 14 he plonked his Queen on g4 and it became obvious he was going to go for a basic Kingside attack. One of the weakest features of my game is my propensity to panic in the face of an unsophisticated Kingside attack. I lost badly to a young girl in such a game in Bradford (really must get around to writing up the 'blog for that tournament) and so I wasn't too pleased to see it coming again.

I won a couple of pawns, either because he didn't care about them or didn't notice and he massed his forces against my King. The computer later on concluded that I was clearly ahead at this stage, but obviously it didn't feel that way to me. After a couple of exchanges I had a chance to win a free piece by attacking a pinned Bishop but rejected the idea because it would
have involved further weakening my King with a pawn advance. Later on, Morgan said it was clearly winning for me ("for a start he's got less stuff to attack your King with!") and the computer agreed. I didnt play it though and very soon afterwards I got mated.

After the game my opponent, who still looked just as gloomy, pointed out a brilliant move I could have played right at the end to avoid the mate and actually threaten mate against his weak back rank, which even Morgan was surprised by. Then I got a beer and went through the game with Morgan who proceeded to point out all the ways I should have won.

Rather depressing and clearly a weakness in my game is facing unsound Kingside attacks from juniors.

Beer
At least the chess was done for the day because we had all taken Drinking Byes (Bailey Byes as Morgan calls them) for the evening game. We went and had a beer in Salthill. Morgan and Eoghan stayed in town for dinner but I went back to the venue to watch the games. I always like watching other people play when I don't have to. I had a pizza and got some more
Guinness. Morgan and Eoghan came back but stayed in the bar watching Ireland play Italy at football. It turned out that Morgan had had a football trial for Luton TOwn when young, which came as something of a surprise since I had never really thought of him as an athletic type, more your dreamy academic.

After the chess was over, Eoghan, Morgan and I and some random bloke from the Minor section had a somewhat drunken Blitz tournament. We played normal blitz with a time handicap and we played Fell Knockdown, the game Colin invented when the person who wins gets a minute taken off in the next game, the winner being the first one to win with only 1 minute on the clock at the end.

Morgan won every single game he played in both formats, apart from one I decided was a draw because the clocks had been set wrong. We drank a lot more Guinness. We chatted to the Wicklow boys and did all the other traditional Saturday evening at a chess tournament type activities.

Eventually Eoghan and I got a taxi back to his Mother's place.

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Day 3

Another draw
I didn't feel too bad on the Sunday morning. We had another cooked breakfast and wandered around the extensive gardens of Eoghan's Mother's place before heading off to the chess again.

I was playing an old chap, Andrew Dobbyn, who had a gloomy air about him and a soup-strainer moustache. Morgan said he looked like a spy.

Eddy Humphrey, one of the Wicklow boys, was sitting next to me. He's a nice chap with a long grey pony tail. Yesterday evening he'd been knocking back the beers with the best of them, this morning he was in a right state - moaning, holding his head in his hands, complaining about having to play on a Sunday morning. I was glad I wasn't in such a bad way! After about half an hour he knocked his King over and went back to bed.

My game was the same sort of story of missed opportunity as the Saturday morning one - I got a pawn up, got a lot of pressure, but couldnt make anything of it and it all petered away and ended up with everything swapped off. Draw. Eoghan drew his game too - his first positive
result of his chess career, great to see. Morgan lost. Eoghan went off to his sister's for lunch and didn't play in the afternoon game.

Morgan had a sandwich. It was labelled as chicken but turned out to be egg, though as he pointed out strictly speaking egg IS chicken, just young chicken, so they weren't lying. I went to the Spar shop and got some meat bread and cheese and had that instead.

And another
My final game was a short-lived affair. It was a Closed Sicilian, another opening I'm not too familiar with. I was playing another schoolboy who seemed fairly brassed off with the whole affair. He kept yawning and looked really bored. The last round of a tournament is often like that if there's nothing much left to play for. He got a marginally better position and then after 13 moves suddenly and unexpectedly offered me a draw which I accepted. He explained that he was tired and had to get ready for a chemistry test the next day. At least I didn't have that problem. Whatever might go wrong in my life I will never have to do another chemistry test. Later on though I saw him chatting to his mates.

My game was all over in half an hour and it was the 2nd year running I'd had an agreed "Grandmaster Draw" in the last round at Galway. In fact it was the 2nd year running I'd drawn both Sunday games at Galway. Overall I got 1 loss and 4 draws, for 2.5/6, a barely acceptable performance especially when you consider that every single one of my opponents was lower
rated than myself (though comparing Irish and UK grades is probably not a valid exercise since most Irish players are graded lower owing to the system they use).

Id had three good games - rounds 1, 2 and 3 - and had some practice in some openings I don't often see, so not all was lost. I missed clear chances to win at least 3 of my games though - I just had been missing relatively simple tactics. Tactics won me games at Hereford and now I was missing them. Just a little out of form I suppose. One of those tournaments.

Meantime, Morgan was involved in another titantic struggle. I was able to watch his game and have a Guinness or two aftermine finished. As ever when at the chessboard, he looked a tortured soul, holding his head in his hands and looking exhausted. He looked as though he was heading for defeat , but managed to find a clever strategy which salvaged a draw. He ended up with 2.5 in the Masters. So that's the Galway tournament over for another year. Between the three of us we managed to win 1, draw 7 and lose 7, so not exactly a stellar performance.

Eoghan arrived back, we had a goodbye beer and then Eoghan and I headed off on the long drive back to Dublin leaving Morgan contemplating a night of solo Guinness-drinking. The good news is that I will be seeing the Great Man again in 3 weeks at the Bury St Edmunds tournament. Russell Goodfellow is going to play that one. Daniels-Goodfellow is a game I would pay good money to spectate at!

Next year I shall win it. Or at least have some beers and a good weekend.

On Wednesday night following that I turned out for the club in a league game and won fairly easily against a player with a rating about the same as mine. I got a pawn up, swapped everything off and won the ending in traditional yet uninteresting style. I dont think local league players are quite as tough as battle-hardened tournament players.