Barnet Elizabethans Chess Club

The other day I found myself messing around with grading calculations for my games from the last few years. You can massage the figures to draw pretty much whatever conclusion you like - especially if, like me, you don't play all that many games. When the law of large numbers hasn't had a chance to assert itself, it's just a question of picking out whatever randomness appeals to you. For instance, since taking up chess again (after about ten years out) my grades have gone: 139, 153, 160. (And, albeit after very few games, my performance this season is a touch over 170). What a marvellous story of continuous improvement - at this rate I should be giving young Carlsen one hell of a beating by 2020 or so. Well maybe, but I notice that if rather than considering the grading season you instead start the year at January 1st then you get a completely different story. Then my annual performances have gone: 125, 170, 155, 165. Perhaps Magnus shouldn't be too worried after...

... but, with any luck, neither does your opponent. And that can be a lot of fun! So it proved in this game, where I stumbled my way into some typically wild Najdorf theory and blundered around like the amateur that I am. At the end of the evening the strong players in the room gathered round and convinced us that black probably should have lost several times over. In this position, they all wanted to play 11. Nd5 and things do indeed get rather hairy here. But on checking the database afterwards, it seems that a few brave grandmasters are still occasionally willing to enter into this line; so it should surely be playable at my level. After that there were rather a lot of errors. 15. ... Kf8 is a clear mistake, and white misses a nice shot at move 19: Here 19. Bg6! seems to win on the spot: after 19. ... fxg6 20. Qxg6 black can't cover both e6 and g7 and goes down quickly; while either 19 ... Raf8 or 19. ... Rhf8 loses to 20. Qh4+. After that the computers consider roughly ever...

Continuing through my backlog of un-blogged games, we reach November and Hemel Hempstead. I'm afraid that it was probably this game that triggered five weeks of silence - I've noticed that I'm often rather slower to post my losses than my wins; and this one really didn't go well. The critical moment comes at move 15: Can I retrieve that far-flung knight? I decided that 15. Bf4? was the only way to do it, but after 15. ... cxb2 black's pawn becomes deeply unpleasant. I was nowhere near seeing the computer's 15. Kg2! Bc5 16. b4!, after which the game remains in the balance. I finished the game off with a blunder, but things were almost certainly too far gone by then anyway. All in all, not one of my better efforts. Happily for Barnet, the rest of the team did rather better, and we scored a fourth win. As a Hull City fan I know better than to get overexcited by a promising start - but you can't really argue with four out of four.