Being Past Your Sell By Date

Firstly, as I have not been blogging for nearly a year now, I should say thanks to all those who inquired about this, and asked that I make a return soon. Also thanks to those who contacted me with kind words regarding my recent IM norm near miss. Sorry if I didn't get back to you but as you can doubtless tell I just didn't have the time.

Anyway today I hope this will be a return to some sort of regular routine from me in which I can offer my various musings and reflections as before. The great thing about getting older [too old] is that you become simply indifferent to all the nonsense that you see. Or at least you care so much less as to be able to laugh things off and put things in some sort of perspective.

Chess is without doubt a really great game and it can torture us as much as it can please us, depending on your motivations and reasons for playing of course. For myself I just like the battle of ideas and testing myself. The competitive tension and underlying drama of the contest combined with the aesthetic beauty of the game all play their part.

I have not really studied chess in any serious way since around 1999 so since then have only dipped into the well of chess knowledge from time to time. Mostly this can happen during a tough tournament [hardly ever a weekender] in which you have the chance to prepare either for an opponent or just to play a particular opening. The most recent example of this for me, that allowed me some chances to do this, was the recent 2008 Irish Open [which of course also had the title of Irish Champion incorporated within it] held here in Dublin.

It was an odd event, yet I was determined to try enjoy the chess as best I could. In the very end I had what might have been seen as a disastrous end to it when I blew a chance to finish joint third and make an IM norm, but as disappointing and frustrating as this was, it was actually not that big a deal really,or at least, not as painful as it would have been when such things really mattered to me. Anyway as the great song says That's Life!



I have had many tragic and comical reversals playing chess, and so this latest one is just another in a long list. Before this, I had not so long ago lost also in the last round at the 2007 City Of Dublin [I think?] to John Redmond [and for the second time, also in the last round too] while when just thinking off the top of my head I can recall the likes of my amazingly painful 1993 last round loss to Stephen Brady in and endgame a full pawn up, in the Irish championships, in which a win got me outright first a draw joint first and a loss nothing!

Then there was the even weirder 2000 last round loss to Eamon Keogh at the 2000 Irish Ch which was held in a shed in a country field, which I certainly deserved to lose but which he perhaps deserved no more than a draw? [Only because he allowed me a drawn position from a hopeless one] Thankfully nothing was at stake in this game. Something which was not the case for me when I lost incredibly against Mel O Cinneide in the last round of the Cork City 2001 event, after playing a really nice game and outplaying my opponent comprehensively, only to blow it in the time scramble. Ironically I got an even more incredible fluke of a win playing Mel this year when at the Cork Rapidplay. I was gifted a dramatic and crucial last round win when Mel inexplicably blundered from a winning position. [Though it should really have been a draw from the overall balance of play] It gave me outright first as opposed to nothing.

In a certain sense the most recent last round loss to Stephen Jessell seems to be most like this Cork City event game with Mel, as it was just as painful to see such a nicely played game ruined, after having just outplayed your opponent so easily and assuredly, as the actual result, which had very frustrating consequences too. Arguably I should have just settled for a draw after a certain point and worry about the norm stuff for another day? Then again, if I had not been so careless so many times I could have made an easy IM norm with relatively little effort as compared to normal attempts?

Additionally I often have also had something of a knack of making players look much better than they actually are, though I am not saying they are bad players at all either. I mean it is just that if I was to play John Redmond or Stephen Jessell another ten times I would sort of expect to win about 7 or 8 times, though naturally they may have rather different expectations too. For me at least though, the proof is in the results such players then go on to have have more generally. In the case of Eamon Keogh? Well it probably has been about 9 wins out of the last 10, with a good fighting draw in 2001, and I have had to work a bit for some of my wins too. But anyway it is often the bad results you remember the most.

On the positive side I still gained some ratings points, which is a bonus for me because I have been doing nothing but lose points for a while now. Therefore when I play in an event, I am just content to play some hopefully decent games, and if I make rating gain all the better.