In which I return to over-the-board chess

Barnstaple Chess Club. Left foreground: Gilbert Csécs v Richard Smith. Left background: Rob Oughton v Rick Dooley. Right foreground: John Howard v Jon Munsey. Right background: Mike Dow v Graham Jones

 It's been a long time coming; I last played competitive over-the-board chess in March 2020, in rounds 5 and 6 of what would end up being an aborted 4NCL season. But tonight, armed with mask, I ventured to Barnstaple to play my first club championship game of the new season.

My game was against Mike Harrison, who had joined only recently, and who I had not previously come across. That's always a potential banana skin, even more so when he chose the dangerous Budapest Gambit (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5). This is, by the way, an excellent tactic for playing against significantly stronger players: picking an aggressive opening that you know well, in the hope that they will go wrong seriously enough for you to get an advantage you can convert. (The late Simon Webb's Chess for Tigers is highly recommended for further reading on this topic.)

However, it turned out that my opponent was the one who made the serious mistake, and I ended up winning fairly easily. Not a bad way to start shaking the rust off.



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