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And so to the last round. As will be well known to some already, Stephen has made something of a career out of spoiling my winning ambitions in Irish chess (most famously in 1993 when despite being a pawn up I still refused several drawing lines and managed to lose-costing me my first Irish title) and has often played the role of my nemesis. Evidently some things don’t change, as it was just like old times in this game. With me getting what at first looked like an advantage from the opening only to find that I had nothing and then after spending far too much time on a few moves found myself in a passive position and too little time. Of course I thought this was all behind me, as it has been a while since I have had any significant problems playing Stephen. Here though my fundamental approach was very flawed indeed, as I was of two minds about whether I should be playing for a win or a draw (a clearly more sensible option when you consider that a win got me £750 a draw at least £400 and a loss nothing! . My choice of opening was also another poor choice as I had been hoping for either a Center Counter or a French Winawer. Faced with a French Steinz variation I had the nostalgic idea that I knew this line very well. I did! A good few years ago when I spent a lot of time studying it. I have regularly used this line as Black as part of my own repertoire, even as recently as the Istanbul Olympiad. After this game I guess it’s time to look at this variation again. To lose as Black is unfortunate but to lose as White is careless. Well, I had not been careless for quite a while. As best as I can recall, the last time I lost with the White pieces was at the Irish last year. Daly (2367) - Brady (2315) [C11]
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