Chess Old Age - The Year That Was

2006 was an eventful year for me on the chessboard, but for all the wrong reasons! After a brief return to good form and some renewed interest in chess in the period 2004/5 I managed in 2006 to lose my way and go so off the chess rails as to leave a trail of disasters and comical reversals. I will share some of these with some light annotations that point to how it feels to be entering a sort of chess old age.

Looking back at some of the events I have played in throughout 2006 I cringe at the level of lazy, unpolished and indifferent approaches taken by myself. These range from outright apathy and boredom to sheer stupidity, though some of these lend themselves to comedy in a tragic/comical sense.

It was a year that saw my return to the Olympiad team, and what a hilarious affair that turned out to be, as the whole enterprise turned into a fiasco for me and ultimately a profoundly wasteful endeavour. Though it was something that needed to be done and at least I had a few laughs with members of the team, so it was nice to have normalized relations with the team members. On the chess board my few efforts were so atrocious that I actually was so happy to just get out of the whole situation! See my blog on Turin Memories for some details.

Other glorious highlights/low lights for me, that indeed made me feel old, was the City Of Dublin event in which I was so jaded that when playing a critical game against rising star Karl Mc Phillips and repeating a variation that I had won in the Leinster Championships of 2005/2006 I seem to just lash out the moves and then after achieving easy equality made a huge tactical blunder and was punished promptly.
[ CLICK ON THE DIAGRAMS TO PLAY THROUGH GAMES ]

Though I did get some measure of redress with a fairly easy win at the 2006/2007 Leinster Championships. It was a competent or even one might say clever win though I had faltered early on when I had allowed a chance for an advantage by going for a win of a pawn [an illusion which nevertheless came to pass] instead of the succesful conclusion of some accurate opening play and some advantage for Black out of an otherwise sterile Queens Gambit Declined type position.

Still when Karl missed his chance early on and the game proceeded along the lines of him having sacrificed a pawn for activity I was pleased enough with how I dealt with his efforts to attack me and simply grab all the pawns before counter attacking. I might be getting old I thought, but apparently I can still play a bit?

Following my loss to Karl in the City of Dublin event I then had a remarkable loss to one of my old adversaries Mark Quinn when after playing rather a nice game I ended up with an easily winning endgame a full exchange up only to make several awful moves in succesion and only then blunder yet again to actually lose! It had been a time scramble but I had about 3-4 minutes versus about 1 minute! Mark was as surprised as I and those watching were and went on to win the event jointly with Karl.

After winning the 2005/2006 Leinster Championships jointly with GM Alexander Baburin with a nice enough last round win versus Karl McPhillips I had some high hopes for 2006/2007.

Alas it was not only not to be but here again it seemed that a sort of Chess Old Age had consumed me and here too, despite some competence and even skill by me I blew it all with a vintage loss in the last round that deprived me of a joint first place victory.

This merely matched my awful play from the first round in which I blundered in the opening from a promising position to end up with a sterile drawn position that I tried to create some winning chances from only to get a lost position and have a miracle escape.

The event was remarkable for the fact that despite there being many strong players participating, no one player dominated or even stood apart. Many of the results were unusual or error prone with lots of draws. In my own case I accepted a draw versus a Czech GM Jan Votava when the position was very good for me indeed, if not virtually winning.

Then allowing a well known Bxh2 check themed piece sac that forces a perpetual against Gavin Wall [though following a totally pedestrian opening by me I was never better anyway].

The last round against John Redmond however was to be yet again more evidence of my seemingly inevitable decline as I played what was a nice opening and middlegame only to first fail to play the most accurate move and retain a nice advantage to go horribly wrong with a one move blunder that left me defenseless and turned the game in an instance. By then I was only equal but it seemed to underline my chess at the moment so well.

At least it was good to see John Redmond after so many years [which again makes one feel old!] as I think it must have been about 16-18 years since I last seen him. John was a strong player who like many before him had emigrated to the UK and had unfortunatley been a loss to Irish chess ever since. He played in the big international in Liverpool and had got his first fide rating back in September but nobody knew this at the time of the Leinster Championships.

Thus Sam Collins [duly impressed by John] got more than he bargained for when the round before he had a truly miraclous escape against John. If nothing else this game was easily one of the most wonderful I have seen in quite a while. I simply loved the themes in this game and if anyone can get a hold of this game I suggest they look at it. The end saw John spoil all his good play when he blundered to allow an opposite bishop endgame become a typical drawn position.

Then at the end of the event it was refeshing and pleasant to retire to the Pub after the tournament with many of the players enjoying a bit of craic with GM Jan Votava, IM Mark Quinn, IM, Gavin Wall, Gordon Freeman , IM Sam Collins plus John Redmond and myself all exchanging stories and experiences over a few drinks in a most relaxed and civilised way. It reminded me of days gone by when this was the norm for such tournaments and at the same time this nostalgia for days past did make me wonder if I was entering my Chess Old Age.