Ilkley Festival 2023 part 1

Back to Ilkley last weekend for their 2nd Festival organised by the irrepressible Andy Wainwright. A slightly different format to last year, fitting a standard 5 round Swiss into two days without the Friday evening session which makes for easier travel and a lower overall time commitment. This required a modest shortening of the game format to G80/10 (so 3h for a 60 move game, but perhaps nudging over that for a few long ones) and games starting at 3h30 intervals so those of us with long games had rather short breaks. But still, it seemed a good trade-off for me.

The divisions were also slightly altered, with only 3 rather than 4, and the boundaries altered to suit. I was in the U1950 Major section so what with me being 1825 I was expecting some tough games. First up I was black against a 1665 player....who played the London. So I just sort of winged it, seemed to come out of the opening ok, then made life tough with a silly move, but held firm for the draw. An adequate though not spectacular start.