Bury St Edmunds Chess Congress 2014

Posted on January 9th, 2015 by Richard

A belated quick report on my progress in this tournament. I finished with 21/2-5. The drawn game was unusual. I played the white side of an Alapin Sicilian and attacked the Black castled king hard. After several sacs, I failed to spot the black king had a rook defending the position, and then the best I had was a repeating perpetual check of the black king to get the draw. Now I can only recall the detail of one of my two losses where I played my favourite Scotch as white and it was in the comfortable Ghulam Khassim variation. I attacked hard in the opening with an opportunity to get the black king exposed early but instead of going the exchange down for a good position I “bottled” and tried playing safe.That gave me a worse position and while I tried to cling on, my opponent made no errors and ground out a win.

Playing at 32nd Bury St Edmunds Chess Congress Minor section 2014

So that was two games I attacked hard and fast early and was lucky to get a half point from! There is a lesson for me to learn in that if I do attack early I need to commit fully to it, but I should know some attacks need more support than I have prepared so I should be more patient with my whole game.

The best game I won was a strange French defence where I went the exchange up (I lost my bishop for winning a rook). My opponent played on doggedly to the end but I held my advantage to win.

During the congress I managed to see and speak with FM Alan Merry and I even bought a few secondhand chess books which I hope to look at and learn from.

The other notable event was the thanks given to event organiser Bob Jones who has now handed over the event after running it for 16 years..well done Bob!

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