4NCL Online Tournament

Domestic circumstances have recently prevented me from enjoying the competitive camaraderie of the club but in modest compensation that has meant no 'over the board' losses for some months now! It has also enabled me to enter the latest 4NCL online tournament which always seems to be played on Tuesday evenings and hence off limits in normal times.

A seven round Swiss played fortnightly with time limit of 45mins plus 15 seconds, the second tier stipulated a maximum online rating of 1700. As such I was obliged to enter the Open section though to be fair there were no superstars, the highest being 2126 and only one other above 2000.

Round 1 saw me over press with suitable punishment being meted out but one way or another, this meant that the next four rounds were against more modest competition from which, not always convincingly, I managed to extract three wins and a draw. One game in particular involved a somewhat abrupt conclusion as follows.

The position arose out of a Caro-Kann where my next move of N-e5 was a logical centralising of my Knight whilst obliquely eyeing up the f7 pawn…and also harbouring a nasty sting for the unwary. Very easy to spot once you know there is a 'winning move' but fortunately my opponent (1807) missed it, played the 'natural' Rhe8 and resigned immediately after my reply.

With 3.5 out of 5, I am likely to be amongst the big boys again in the next round but the worst I can do is 50% and when playing chess in the company of Bacchus there are worse ways to spend an evening!

It is well-run and if they ever change the day to anything other than a Tuesday, future tournaments might possibly be of interest to other members.