Huddersfield

Friday March 26th

Chris came straight from working down South to my place and we met up in the pub over the road from my house. He was sitting drinking a pint of beer and reading an Iain M Banks novel. Very good, though as I pointed out, he should have been doing chess problems or studying an openings manual. He was very impressed that the beer there is £1.50 a pint! We went to my place and I gave him a quick briefing on things like tournament etiquette and how to record your moves, and then we headed off to the venue in Huddersfield.

This is the most local chess tournament to my house, about 10 miles away, and the drive only takes half an hour. The tournament is held at the Ukrainian club which is an old builiding standing in mature gardens just to the north of the town centre. It's a small venue, and a small tournament, but it's well run and has a good atmosphere. The place is nice too - there's a good bar there selling pleasant Ukrainian beer.

I had a distaster here last year, 0/4, but this year the bottom section had been split into two and there was a novices section (tactfully called "Standard" rather than "Novice"!) which had an upper grade limit of 110. I felt that I had a good chance with such a low upper limit (I am 99 but playing this year somewhat higher than that) and set myself a target of 3.5/5 for the event.

Game 1 - a narrow escape
I was playing one of the weakest players - according to grade - in the whole tournament, an old chap rated 62, so I knew this was a game I had to win. Chris was up and running and seemed to be doing OK. My opponent played the opening badly but then for some reason I managed to make a mess of things and my position went from good to not so good. Then, after a long 20 minute think, I embarked on a strategy which I felt woiuld win me a slim advantage - I won a piece but conceded him some passed pawns. I had a long think becuase it was a risky strategy to give him those dangerous passed pawns.

Imagine my consternation when he played a completely different move that I'd not even considered - which cost me a piece! I simply had overlooked that he could check me with his Queen and win an undefended Knight. A really bad blunder on my part and the horrible thought sank over me that I was completely losing to one of the lowest-rated players in the event. I had no counter-play whatsoever. I made my next half-dozen moves quickly, not really thinking at all - I was very lucky not to simply blunder again. All I could hope for was that he would blunder back , which, luckily for me, he did - giving a piece away and then , quickly, another. After that it was soon over; I spotted a tactic to win the game.

It was a dreadfully poor game with blunders on both sides and I was really lucky not to be on 0/1 with my hopes shattered, all because of a really careless oversight. On the plus side I had managed a win, hopefully laying the ghost of the "round 1 hoodoo" and had "won ugly". I hoped that presaged a lucky tournament for me.

Chris lost against a good opponent, but had played well in his first-ever serious game - in fact it went on longer than mine.

We headed back to my place and analysed the games in the pub over a beer.