Yesterday I played in the monstrously strong (11 GMs and 10 IMs for starters) King's Place one day tournament, held next door to King's Cross station in London. The venue is pretty good, being a very new arts complex next-door to the Guardian/Observer offices and - very importantly - only 50 yards from a Pret A Manger and their bargain 99p cups of coffee. There were also U-170; U-145 and U-120 tournaments, and even a My First Chess Tournament for U-85s which seemed, though, to be populated entirely by mini-microbes.
This was my final/only warm-up event before the British Championships, and it certainly served its purpose in providing 6 games against a broad spectrum of reasonable to super-strong opposition.
In Round 1 I found myself on board 6 playing GM Gawain Jones, a positive bunny at rapidplay where he can only claim a rating of 2614 (ECF 253). Thankfully only the first 5 boards were relayed live, because I played a truly embarrassing game, managing to lose in 17 moves with the White pieces, having lost a piece for absolutely nothing on about move 14. When Black gets a rook onto an open e file which pins yr knight on e2 against your uncastled king and follows up with Bg4 after you've already played your pawn from f2 to f4, the omens are not good. And when he then plays b7-b5 attacking a bishop on c4 and follows with b5-b4 diving your c3 knight away, the e2 knight is likely to drop off. Which it did. This game can never be seen by anyone else. Ever.
Round 2 was rather easier, and I won a reasonably good game with black against a 1885/161 rated opponent. Round 3 and things got even better, as my pet new system against the dreaded French brought me an almost well-played victory over Phil Brooks (2216/210) who recently played a season or two for Shirley before returning South. I got a knight to a5 perpetually attacking a backward pawn on c6, but somehow Black defended. Although I still had the position under control I imprudently lashed out with a g4 pawn move and immediately wished I hadn't when my opponent found a couple of clever knight moves threatening awful forks on my king and queen. I had to un-attack the c6 pawn to get my knight into the game and promptly fell into another knight fork which swapped off the queens but cost me a pawn. Both of us were then surprised to discover that the resultant double knight ending was completely winning for me, as I could take two moves to attack the c6 pawn again and he couldn't do anything about it. Once that went his whole position fell apart.
So with 2 out of 3 I was once more in with the big boys, and got paired against IM Simon Ansell (2365/229) with Black. He played an English against me, and threw in an interesting exchange sac which netted him a pawn and the bishop pair. Amazingly I defended extremely well, giving up a pawn to swap off one of his bishops for my puny knight and getting my rooks active. Finally I gave the exchange back to produce an ending of rook and 2 pawns each, which he immediately agreed drawn.
Round 5 and I lost with white against FM Radovanovic (2253/217) from Serbia (who I beat at the Scarborough Open in 2013). I badly misjudged a position straight out of the opening and he got a monster knight on e4 which I could never shift. I defended as well as I could but eventually time pressure intervened and I fell apart.
By now my personal battery had virtually exhausted itself, but there was still a round to go. I was black against Jeremy Fraser Mitchell (2042/171), and he completely outplayed me with the Saemisch KID - luckily not something Roy is able to do too often at the Royal Oak. I got stuck with an awful isolated queen's pawn and he reduced me to grovelling around just to stay afloat. Somehow the crisis passed, and I stabilised the position and was at least level, but then I had a rush of blood to the head and sacced an exchange for what I hoped was a mating attack. It was just that, but unfortunately it was for White. But in a position where he had the happy choice between delivering perpetual check or mate in two, White contrived to lose on time. A very, very lucky escape!!
So overall, I finished with 3.5/6, a respectable 27th= position, and with a TPR of 6 x 211. (And hopefully a 35 ELO points boost for my somewhat depressed FIDE rapidplay rating.)
Overall winners were Luke McShane and Gawain Jones with 5.5/6, who took home £750 each. Third equal were GMs Howell and Hawkins and IMs Ghasi and Eggleston with 5/6, and they took home ...... precisely nothing!
So all in all a really excellent event, which is highly recommended to players of all standards. In fact I suggest a team outing next year. Only £23 return on a Virgin Trains cheap ticket from Coventry, and easy walking distance to the venue. Add in the proximity of the 99p cup of coffee and what's not to like??
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