4NCL 2015/2016 – Rounds 1&2
The Paris attacks on the Friday meant that our female player couldn’t travel from Paris to London and we started both matches with a loss on board 8. Still, we were strong enough to compensate for that setback and win comfortably – on the Saturday we played The Spirut of Atticus and won 5-2 (with one draw, made by me) and on the Sunday we played Oxford, usually a tricky team, but we won by a large margin 4-1 with 3 draws.
My play was also in line with the perfomances at the ECC – I drew with white against an FM rated 2244 and won with black against an FM rated 2341. I was winning in the first game, but missed it and then had no more chances.
Counting my summer tournament in Crete, my Sunday win was a 5th one in a row with black! My opponent was a young FM who started the game in a quiet manner and then decided to go berserk.
A satisfying start of the new season and hopefully we will manage to mount a title challenge this year!