Scarborough tournament

Here I am in a hotel room in Bury St Edmonds for the tournament this weekend, but I've not written about last weekend'sin Scarborough yet. So I better give it a try tonight before I forget it all.

Thursday 22 October

Russell Goodfellow was coming up to Scarborough so the weekend kicked off on Thursday night when he got a coach upto Wakefield and I met him in a pub in town. He seemed to be in bullish form. We headed back to my place via the chip shop and the off licence and had a couple of games of pool (1-1) before going home because he wanted to watch ahorror film. I fell asleep of the film (one of the Saws) but woke up at the end and he showed me some of his new openingideas in the Scotch and the like. It was about 1am by this point so I found it a bit hard to concentrate. Went to bed at about 2am.

Friday 23 October

Felt a bit delicate for most of the day. Went to the usual Friday lunch pub meeting with work colleagues in a Thairestaurant pub. Met Russell at Cross Gates station at 3.30pm and we headed to scarborough. He had warned me that going via York had proved a mistake in the past owing to the heavy traffic, so we went further north, up the exceptionally steep road at Sutton Bank and to Scarborough via Helmsley and Pickering. We made good time. I droppedRussell off at about 5.30 and headed to my B&B.

It was a nice enough place, small typical seaside Guest House with a tiny room but it did the job. I had a bit of a restand then walked down the seafront to the chess venue. The chess was being played in the Spa Complex, a large function venue on the seafront with superb views of the beach and the sea. You could hear the waves crashing in on the shore. I walked to the venue in the rain and, unusually, managed to arrive on time for the first round. As wellas Goodfellow, Dave Stephenson was also playing in this event along with tournament regulars Brendan O'Gorman and Richard Desmedt who by coincidence plays at the same village team as me.
I arrived while the opening ceremony was going on - the mayor of Scarborough was giving a speech about chess andmaking some rather strange comments about how men are better at chess because women are better at multi-tasking. Theaudience was predominantly male but I wondered how that went down with the women who were present.

Game 1 - a bad start

My first game was against Tony Butler, a nice bloke who was there because his son was playing. Often "Dads" are among the weaker playersat a tournament, and this chap didn't even have a rating - turned out it was only his second tournament. I wasn'treally on form though - I played quite passively and negatively and ended up in a cramped position. He seemed quitegood and didn't make any real mistakes. The game dragged on and on past the time control and even though we were inthe "foundation" (bottom) section, we were one of the last boards still playing, which is unusual. I never reallymanaged to get back to terms and was struggling throughout without ever actually losing until right at the end. Itcame down to a Knight + Pawn endgame. Eventually I fell a pawn down but struggled on and on until move 60 when I finallycapitulated as I couldn't prevent him promoting an a-pawn. A disappointing start, though I didn't feel too bad because had just been a bit passive rather than my usual blunders, and he was clearly a good player. The usual risksof playing unrated players because you never know how good they are going to turn out to be.

Goodfellow had had a good win against one of the top players in his section and already gone back, so I wanderedback through the town. I stopped en route and had a curry before going to bed.

Saturday 24 October

Game 2 - a nervy performance against a little girl

I overslept and annoyed my landlady by coming down to breakfast a bit late. I only had toast and hurried to the venue. I was about 10 minutes late. I was drawn against a young girl called Morgan Petrie, who turned out to be the daughter of the arbiter. I hate playing young girls and have had two baddefeats against them recently. At least this one didn't wipe her hand after shaking hands like the one at Bradforddid. She was a pretty poor player, and I was a piece up right in the opening. Dave Stephenson came over and looked at my position and it was fine but right afterwards I played a shocking blunder and blundered back the piece. It was one of those situation where you realise the blunder the very second you take your hand off the piece. I went to geta cup of tea to collect my thoughts and met Russell in the queue. He made a "pistol to the head" gesture and said"you were a piece up and now its horrible"! It was a nasty moment.

Fortunately however, she soon blundered the pieceright back again. it was really a dreadful, amateurish, blunder-ridden game. After that, however, she fell apart andI won quite easily.
Goodfellow drew his game after the usual massive time trouble - he made about 12 moves in 30 seconds to reach the timecontrol. He wasn't all that pleased to have drawn. We went to the pub with his friend Nigel who had lost bothhis games and was pulling out.

Game 3 - an easy win

We got back late again after a pint or two. Theres not much to say about
my third game - it was against the kind ofopponent I'd been expecting in the bottom section who soon blundered a piece and I won quite easily. At least withtwo wins today I was back to a respectable score of 2/3.

I had plenty of time to spare to watch other people's games. Russell got into huge time trouble again and got swindled with a bank-rank mate threat.

Went out after the games for a pint with Russell and his friend Riley. Riley is a fairly irascible bloke who oftengets a big angry during his games. He was friendly enough in the pub though. We went to a place called the Blue Loungewhich had a happy hour on, £2 for all pints, and had a couple of beers there and a chat to the bar manager who was a young student paying for his way through University which was interesting. Then Russell and Riley went off forsome chips and I went back to my guest house to get rid of my bag. I got a take-away meal from an Italian restaurant- a very nice risotto with bacon and asparagus, which was quite high-class for a take-away. There was a fierce notice in the guest house forbidding guests to bring take-aways, though I think it was mainly aimed at curry. Still ,I snuck my risotto in and ate it very carefully so as not to make a mess.

I fell asleep for a bit and woke up at about 10pm. I had agreed to meet up with Russell again. I didn't really feellike it, but I forced myself and in the end it was worth it. We went to quite a nice pub on the seafront where therewas quite a reasonable covers band playing. They did a few 70s and 80s numbers. They were called Swagger - most of the band members were in their 40s Id say but there was a young bloke on the lead guitar. We had a few beers and watched.Riley got a bit drunk and started annoying Goodfellow by drinking his beer very fast and then pretending it was Goodfellow's round. The band finished and we went back. Goodfellow had had to change accommodation when he turnedup to the place he thought he'd booked and found they weren't doing rooms any more! He wasn't happy. So he shiftedto another place but then forgot where it was and apparently ended up wandering the streets for an hour. I had nosuch alarms and was soon asleep.

Sunday 25 October

Game 4 - missed opportunity

On Sunday morning I got a bit of a lie in because the clocks had gone back.
I paid up for my B&B and drove into town. I had to find somewhere to park for the day. Parking was somewhat in short supply, so I ended up putting it on a street high above the chess venue, where it could only stay until noon. Scarborough is a town built on steep cliffs rising sharply from the sea, and it was on top of one ofthose. The 12 noon curfew for my game was obviously potentially a bit of a problem, since it could go on until 1.30in theory, so I decided I'd just have to play quickly.

Naturally, in such circumstances, the game turned out to be a bit of a grind. I was playing an old Scottish bloke wholooked like a retired docker. He played a stolid, uninspiring game, but was hard to break down. I went a pawn up butit was isolated, so I used the open lines on either side of it to apply pressure. Gradually I managed to get an advantage but as the noon deadline approached, I wasn't getting through. I felt a bit like Cinderella. In the end, with noon getting close, the pieces all got swapped off and he took the extra pawn with his King and we agreed a draw. Typical of one of my games - a good opening and pressure but I couldn't find a way to convert it.

I went and shifted my car to a location further along the clifftop where Dave Stephenson had told me there was free parking. Then I went to Wetherspoons for lunch with Russell Goodfellow. After the morning's draw my last fainthope of prize money was gone, so I had a roast beef dinner and a couple of pints.

Game 5 - saving the best for last

It was a fair step from Wetherspoons to the venue and after a long wait for my lunch, I was 15 minutes late for the game. I had had two pints and since there was nothing now to play for, I wasn't really all that bothered about this last game. Probably because of that, I played my best game of the whole tournament. Unfortunately, despite my best intentions,I have not been writing up this account right after the games as I planned - in fact, at the time of writing, Iam on a train from Venice to Rome almost three weeks after the tournament, on November 12th, so I don't recallthe details of the game. What does stick in my mind is that my opponent tried one of the premature Kingside attackswhich have often caused me problems - think of the game against Turloch Kelly at Galway, and there was also one at Bradford, both of which I lost when I should have won easily - so I was pleased this time to be able to fend off the attack, ensure his pieces were misplaced as a result, and then easily win with a nice assault on the empty Queenside. It was a pleasing win, and my final score of 3.5/5 was just about respectable.
I hung around the venue a bit for a chat with some of the other players, went and picked Russell up from the pub andthen we climbed up the steep hill back to the car and drove back to my place. In the evening we went out for a few beersthough since it was a Sunday most of the pubs closed at 10.30pm. We did manage to find one - the Ship in HorburyBridge - which stayed open until 11, and had a final couple there whilst chatting to a couple of blokes who lived onboats on the canal.