Yorkshire League v Harrogate 2024

Time to blog another game, if only to prove I can sometimes play reasonably well OTB. This was Saturday's trip to Harrogate. My opponent was only 1540 but played extremely well, I didn't really have any significant chances until he saw some ghosts in the endgame and dropped a pawn, following which it was a comfortable grind.

Lichess has my play at 15 average centipawns loss (ACPL) per move, which is pretty decent by my usual standards. Chess.com says 94% accuracy and 2150 rating. The biggest "mistake" according to the analysis was a deliberate choice I made to go down a simple winning route that eliminated any counterplay, so that assessment by stockfish seems a bit harsh. In fact if I truncate the pgn at move 32, immediately before the e5 pawn push that stockfish doesn't like, my ACPL is an amazing 6, which is a number I haven't seen before and don't expect to see again for a while.

My opponent was at 27 ACPL including his game-losing blunder, which is very impressive considering his rating. He looked good for the draw through the middle game, even if he didn't ever put me under any real pressure. I wonder if I need to find some more aggressive options for black, especially when playing weaker opponents, as I've had a few fairly sterile games against low-rated players. Maybe it's ok to start from the basis of a comfortable draw and pick up wins when they drop into my lap though. After all, most players who are much weaker than me make substantial and obvious errors at some point in the game, as (eventually) happened yesterday. And if they happen to play all the right moves in the right order, good luck to them!