Halloween Round Up

Lack of time (and dodgy results!) has culminated in a lack of bloggage over the last week. Things improved though and normailty was resumed with a match-winning performance in the Silver King League (after the rest of the team all bottled it, taking easy draws).

Okay, I was the only player to significantly out-grade my opponent. In my defense I'd not only had a bad day (car broke down... again) but my opponent is obviously better than his published rating.

Onto the now distant memories of last week. Playing for Daventry, we got beaten by Solihull and then crashed out of the U700 Cup in the same league to Banbury.

Two games, the first of which I was considerably better in the opening but just started playing some complete rubbish and then lost after dragging things out for about 10 moves longer than I should have done (mainly due to being in a bit of a sulk!).

The next game was against Dan Rowan (again) where I had black (again) and tried something different against his Trompowsky. I can't say I was particularly happy with my handling of his attack.

And finally, onto last nights' effort. This was for Chessmates A against Rushden in the Northamptonshire Silver King League. I somehow managed to get lumbered with the white pieces and proceeded to walk into what must have been my opponents' pet line. That said, the Caro-Kann should not hold too many fears. By my reckoning, I held a slight advantage for most of the game and finally converted this although I am sure, at the time, that instead of 25 Kc2, playing Qe4 might have been better (grabbing all those light squares).... it worked out in the end anyway and the team ended up with a narrow win!

In the meantime, the World Chess Championships starts on 7th November in Sochi. I'm fairly certan that Magnus and Vishy will provide more entertaining (if less amusing!) chess than the above three games!

Progress can be followed here: http://www.theweekinchess.com/chessnews/events/world-chess-championship-2014