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Yorkshire League again

Yorkshire League again

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jamesthetall
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New season, slightly new league format (parallel 3A and 3B leagues for the first half of the season, then playoffs between the top halves and bottom halves). We are in 3B along with a couple of last year's teams and a few new ones.

First match v West Leeds who we beat last year due in large part to their two defaults. Yesterday it was our turn to be a player short but we did bring along our strongest 4, maybe 5 (Ben as a newcomer is a bit unknown but seems pretty decent). We did have a significant rating advantage across the boards to make up for our one point default, with me having the biggest plus at over 200 points.

We ran out winners 4 1/2 - 1 1/2, with their point being the default and the half being.....me. Not sure what went wrong really, the analysis suggests we both played near-perfectly which is a surprise for me let alone my 1600 opponent. He was white and never played for an advantage but never left me any real chances that I could see (even in hindsight, with an engine). Stockfish says we both played with remarkable accuracy:

On the other boards, Mike's opponent dropped a piece early on, Martin smashed his game up with a gambit line he'd just looked up a day or two previously, and Charlie's guy on top board self-trapped his knight. They were the solid three points I'd seen coming, and Ben had a more interesting and challenging game where they castled on opposite wings and he piled up his rooks and got a strong attack going. That was probably the highlight especially as it was his first competitive game at standard time controls.
So it was a good day out overall, but I'm left wondering what if anything I should do differently. A solid draw as black is ok generally but when I'm playing someone so much weaker, maybe I need to mix things up a bit more. OTOH it's just one game, d4/c4 isn't that common in the first place and most of my Budapests have been much more interesting.