Wharfedale smackdown

Final round of the Wharfedale League last Tuesday, and plucky Settle (sitting in 2nd place!) were taking on the unbeaten leaders from Ilkley, Chess Centre Falcons. Tie break score means we had to win 3-0 to overtake them in the league, which was always a tall order as they have a lot of strong players to call on. I wasn't sure who I would be playing, but it was no surprise to be significantly outrated.

There's a funny background to this game. Well, funny by chess playing standards. My wife was not hugely excited by the story. It turns out that my opponent had been on the adjacent board to me in the last round on Sunday at Ilkley Chess Festival. I didn't really know who he was at that point, I knew he was one of the Ilkley players but was in any case fully engrossed in my game. He, on the other hand, was playing out a boring draw and (so he told me afterwards) had spent most of his time watching my rather more interesting game. He'd noticed my imperfect play against the Alekhine Attack so when he saw me attempt the white side against him, he was able to come up with a bit of a plan.

For my part, I'd looked at the Festival games just long enough to find out that the Alekhine Attack was a viable line to play, but not long enough to absorb all the details. So when my opponent played an unsound but unusual line as early as move 4, I was on my own....

Charlie won again (he has an amazing record over the past year and  will probably have overtaken my rating next month) but Mike was struggling and eventually lost. So although my poor prep possibly cost us the match, it didn't cost us the league title. And it was a hugely enjoyable game, only slightly spoilt by the realisation that if I'd had enough time to look over the weekend Festival games properly, I'd probably have come out of the opening in a much stronger position. Still, it's all part of the fun.