4NCL with Celtic Tigers, or my second season in the strongest British league
Hi All,
As I have got a tad more time on my hands this weekend, I decided to go through my 4NCL games so far this season, and share with you some of the impressions/analysis.
First of all, as some of you may now, I represent Celtic Tigers at the strongest British league since last season. It's really nice to be a part of such an amazing team and I hope we get to play together again once the virus madness is over!
So far in the league we have played 3 weekends or 6 rounds. The season start hasn't been amazing for us, however, in the last weekend we managed to score an important win, which may prove crucial when we will fight hard to keep our spot in the highest league in the coming season. Final note before we dig into the games - this year I have been playing most of the games on board 1, which has been really challenging, bus so far also very rewarding!
Round 1
The first 2 rounds were played in the second weekend of January, so a wee while ago. This was my debut on board 1, so I was a bit nervous before round 1, as I was having strange thoughts in my head... "What if I lose first 3-5 games and only manage to make couple of draws during the whole season, and so on.." - not a great psychology, but what to do.
Fun fact: my round 1 opponent was GM Turner Matthew with whom I shared 1st-2nd place in 2019 Scottish championships, 6 months ago. 
Not a very eventful round 1, but I was pleased to have scored my first half a point and ready to fight for more in the upcoming rounds. Unfortunately, we lost the overall match 2-6. It was not a big surprise we lost as our opponents were favorites, however, we were hoping to score a couple of more points.
Round 2
It was an interesting game. Definitely some missed chances. This could have been avoided if I had better time management. Or if I was more familiar with the positions in this variation, so would have had a better idea of what to do there. All in all, not a horrible game. This was a very important match for the team as we were competing with Cambridge University team, who is also fighting this season for survival in the highest league. This time we finished the match in a draw 4-4. And this was a miracle if looking at some of the games on other boards, but hey, in the end of the day it is the result that counts! (or is it?!)
Round 3
League resumed with the next two rounds a month later, and here we were facing Chessable White Rose team. It's really cool to see that some of the key online chess portals portals are getting involved in the league (another example is Chess.com Manx Liberty team).
All in all I think this was a very interesting game. The opening didn't go exactly smooth, but that being said, I found the right simplifications and managed to equalize with Black, which is nice after losing several games against e4 in Gibraltar.
Round 4
After a relatively quick draw on Saturday, I was ready for a serious fight with White pieces on Sunday. In my preparations for the game I saw my opponent played a game in KID previous weekend, so I scrutinized that game and prepared a line, which worked out just as planned in the game.
I really liked the way I played this game even though the engine doesn't agree with my approach. I think from human perspective it was a very unpleasant game all the way for Black and so my opponent eventually crushed under pressure. So that was my first win of the season. Unfortunately, we lost the match 3-5, and this was a very important match as our opponents are also fighting for survival in the highest league this season, so this match result might bite us later.
Round 5
For rounds 5 and 6 my cousin and partner in crime for many years when we were teenagers joined. He is a well established GM, and so I was really looking forward catching up with him and also play together as in the old good days. Round 5 was a very tough one for us as we were facing arguably the strongest team in British chess for many years - Guildford, and my opponent was none other than GM Gawain Jones (2678).
While we ended up losing the match (no surprise there), the result wasn't too bad in the end as my teammate Chris Skulte managed to win a very nice game and so the final score was 2-6.
Round 6
This was the central match of the weekend - a must-win match for us against 3Cs team. They had a good lineup, but believed we were better, and also, well, frankly, we didn't have any other choice than win the match.
Thanks for reading and let me know if you have any questions/feedback!
Cheers,
Ritvars
