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.

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.