I’ve been settled into my new job and new life in London for a while now, and an update is long overdue. I’ll share a game and a few words about London chess today, and update you all on my training in a week or two.
Chess in London is quite different from chess in rural Somerset. I’ve joined two clubs – The Drunken Knights in the London League, and Muswell Hill in the Middlesex League. Both are rather strong; I generally played board 1 for my Somerset club, but would play board thirty-something for the Drunken Knights if they were ever at full strength. My hope is that playing stronger players on a regular basis will be good for my chess.
Evening chess after a long day at work is, unsurprisingly, proving more of a struggle than after the shorter days I have been used to. Fortunately upgrading my habitual Diet Coke to a Red Bull seems to keep me relatively alert, and although my chess has not leapt to Nakamura‘s or Sachdev‘s level, I am so far more-or-less holding my own, with 1.5/4 against mostly stronger opposition. My most interesting game so far, against a new Drunken Knights, Muswell Hill and West is Best (my 4NCL team) teammate, is given below with brief comments:
what happens after 12. cxb5 axb5 13. Nxb5? I guess …Ba6 14.a4 Qb6 winning back the pawn, but is that so clearly good for Black? would have been nice to have that variation in the analysis.
ah now I saw it, …c4 of course.