Ilkley Major (U1900) Day 2

I went into Sunday dreaming of 2 wins and a 4-1 result, but also thinking that 1.5 points would be a good result and 1 not too bad. I was now up in the top part of the field so would be playing against decent opponents.

Round 4 was a local guy but a new opponent for me. I had mostly better opening into the middlegame, lost the plot a bit failing to find any breakthrough, and then won a very messy endgame where I think we both blundered a couple of times but I wasn't recording at that point. (Under 5 mins with only a 10s increment.)

i probably need to look at the Benko gambit a little more, I did ok out of the opening but more through luck than design, and I certainly could have played it better.

So, I was on 3 points going into the final round. Two players on 3.5 were fighting it out for the overall competition title on board 1, and I was playing another 3-point guy on board 2. We were not adjacent due to the room layout however, so I had no idea how the other game was going and anyway wasn't really thinking of the overall first place, just hoping to win my game. The next board down was my first-round nemesis on 3 points playing against a 2.5.

White opened with Nf3, I did my usual somewhat ad-hoc Queen's pawn stuff in response. I made a poor strategic choice early on with c5 which left me under the cosh for much of the game, though the engine says I was basically holding on ok. I had some limited hopes of counterplay due to his weak pawns and hoped that I'd have a better endgame should we get that far.

Then out of the blue he dropped a piece for no reason whatsoever. Just moved a bishop to a square where I could safely take it (so long as I did so the right way). He played on a while, but never looked like salvaging a draw.

Here's the game, not a particular classic but I put up a decent fight.

Meanwhile the top board had drawn, as had the one below me. So I had the fun of closing out an easy win in a low-pressure position to share first place in the overall competition. My performance rating of 1997 is my best by a distance (last year was 1934 thanks to weaker opponents). Of course this isn't really a useful estimate of my actual rating, it just means I got a bit lucky in some fairly even games. I didn't play fantastically well but managed to avoid too many stupid mistakes (at least outside of time trouble) and rode my luck.

My current thinking is that next time I should probably enter the open and get thoroughly rinsed by some of Yorkshire's top juniors.

Next up: the inter-county U1850 final is in a couple of weeks (Yorks are playing Middlesex). Watch this space!