4NCL with the Celtic Tigers (Part 2)

Hi All,

Finally I have pulled myself together to write another blog-post to share my experience in 4NCL. You can see the first part of this blog-series here.

P.s. thank you for your comments and messages regards the first blog-post. Your interest in the games certainly is what motivates me to write more  

February weekend in 4NCL

February in UK is not great - cold and wet - in my opinion the worst weather possible. Now and then it makes me rethink all my life choices and how I ended up in this otherwise pleasant country. Nevertheless, the weather doesn't really interfere with chess, so I was all pumped to give help Celtic Tigers to win the next two matches.

In round 5 we were paired against team named Wood Green Monarchs (one thing I am quite fascinated is the team names in 4NCL - there must be a cool story for behind many of them!). I was playing board 5 against Stepanyan Henrik (British rating 2290, while FIDE lagging a bit behind 2150).

Round 5

 A very long and hard fought game, which I managed to win in the end. The opening phase didn't go exactly according plan, but I managed my way around. Afterwards, several inaccuracies from my side to actually convert the game, so lots of work to be done to improve my calculations and endgame technique.

Even though I managed to grind out a win in my game, unfortunately we lost the match 3,5-4,5. So round 6 is a must-win situation for us.

Round 6

In round 6 we were facing Grantham Sharks (another cool team name!), and this time I was playing board 3 with Black pieces and my opponent was FM Daskalov Dimitar.

A hard fought game - easily equalized in the opening, found a creative idea g5-f4, but then didn't play very well in the endgame. Lessons from this weekend was - need to improve my endgame! We managed to draw the match with Sharks in the end, which wasn't ideal, but a draw still kept our chances to qualify for the promotion pool if we play well the remaining matches!

Let me know if you have any questions and stay tuned for part 3!

Thanks,
Ritvars