Huddersfield White Rose Congress

White Rose is a circuit of chess congresses in Yorkshire organised by Andy Wainwright of Ilkley. I was recently disappointed by the cancellation of an U1850 County match that I'd been going to play in so made a snap decision to enter the U1900 section of the Huddersfield event last weekend as a replacement. I've blogged about the format before, it's 5 rounds of 80+10, three on Saturday and two on Sunday, which is a slightly compressed time control and a tough schedule but enables the entire event to fit into two days without the traditional late night Friday session that weekend Swiss competitions generally have. It was about a 90 min drive from home and the seasonal clock change that happened to take place overnight was going to cost another hour of sleep so I made the decision to stay overnight at the event hotel rather than drive there and back both days. This worked well, it was very comfortable and relaxing overnight despite a bit of drunken shouting into the late evening - and I don't mean me!

My 1832 rating put me about a third of the way down the field so I was paired against one of the lower-rated players in round 1. After an unconventional English opening where I didn't feel entirely comfortable, my opponent gave up a pawn and I was soon into a very comfortable endgame. Or so I thought. in fact I was so complacent that I completely blundered the win into a fully drawn position, and only then rescued the point with a cute tactic. Phew. Not proud of the way that went but a point's a point. Here's the game:

Round 2 I was up against the joint 2nd seed, who I'd beaten somewhat fortuitously last summer in the final round at Ilkley (I was under pressure and then he blundered a whole piece which isn't really that common at this level). He played the opening very strongly with the black pieces and I was soon hopelessly lost. I played some absurd swindles, somehow miraculously survived the middlegame and he swapped into a tough rook and opposite bishop endgame where he was only one pawn up. I clung on quite tenaciously and eventually reached a draw:

Last game of the day and my opponent was unrated, which was a bit unusual. He was quite a young adult and it turns out he'd been playing online for a little while but this was his first OTB experience. He blitzed most of his moves pretty quickly but played at a very decent level and finished the weekend on 3/5 (+2 =2 -1) with a performance rating of 1857 so I'm a bit miffed to get no rating credit whatsoever for inflicting his sole defeat! I had a silly hallucination in the opening/middlegame and played an entirely unjustified early e5 in my Caro-Kann defence, luckily just about got away with it and simplified to a drawn endgame. Then I accidentally invited a speculative (but incorrect) sac which he impulsively took, and converted the N v pawns endgame quite nicely albeit a bit nailbitingly.

2.5/3 was a strong first day putting me in a group of 6 behind a sole leader on 3.

Overnight was very comfortable and relaxing as I said. I had time for a short and rather unexciting run on Sunday morning before a leisurely breakfast.

Round 4 I was up against the other joint 2nd seed, who I'd not played before. He blundered a pawn early in a Queen's Gambit, but manufactured some decent pressure out of it. I was winning most of the time but felt under pressure and burnt a lot of clock time. I finally forced him into a piece sac for a strong attack which I should have fought off but instead I cracked and gave him back the piece with a winning position. Once we got into an endgame I played pretty well however and made a miraculous save, which unfortunately I haven't recorded for posterity as I was again under 5 mins for the latter portion of the game.

Going into the last round there was a sole pair on 3.5/4 who were playing each other, and then I was one of the chasing bunch on 3. I was drawn against a local junior who had beaten me recently in a 4NCL game where I'd had good chances and finally succumbed in time trouble on move 85. Same colours today and a very similar Nimzo-Indian opening. I came out of the opening rather well and won a pawn, only to give it back with a silly tactical oversight. However I still had a structural advantage in the endgame and proceeded to play rather well, converting the win flawlessly from that point on. A really nice game overall IMO and lichess/stockfish isn't even too harsh about my pawn-dropping error:

The lead pair had agreed a quick draw so that put me equal first with them and one other. Even with the unrated win in round 3 not counting for anything, I believe my rating will also go over 1850 next month for a new lifetime peak. A good weekend's work.