Queensland Championship, rounds 2 & 3

Old age seemingly does not go away if one ignores it. After a rather intense Thursday, a stressful Friday was more than my system was able to take. I left home at 1pm to give myself plenty of time to get to the venue, St Josephs Nudgee College, by 2.30 pm. Maps estimated the journey at under one hour but I only arrived at 2.50, 10 minutes before forfeit time. There was an accident somewhere apparently. Tony Dowden got caught in it, and with less of a safety margin built into his trip, missed the round.

Still, after some moves I was ahead on time and had a better position. Tristan had misplayed the opening badly and by move 20 black was all over white. Not taking the pinned pawn on e4 was criminal. One of my students had the cheek to say "checks and captures" with a grin on his face. He had heard me repeat this hundreds of times. Perfectly right!

I was a bit rattled by failing to finish the game quickly and kept making mistakes. According to stockfish black was still better and missed several chances later. Then I missed 40.Bd8! and defended badly although now white was better. The game did go longer than recorded here but my scoresheet was too messy to reconstruct.

Now I had about 10 minutes to compose myself before the next game! My brain was now mush but luckily for me Gareth spent all his time playing natural moves. Blacks position was fine, maybe a bit better, when he thought himself down to a minute for many moves and blundered a Mate.



I got home after another hour drive at about 11pm. That is when a migraine started and didn't go away. By 6am I had not slept, had a fever and a blocked nose. If I had been in Brisbane at a hotel around the corner I might have swallow a whole lot of tablets and soldiered on but the drive as well was just too much. I emailed my withdrawal, swallowed more pills and finally fell asleep.

Now two days later I feel human again. What lesson do I take away from this experience? I need to accept that I am no longer in my prime. No more driving for hours before chess games and only a game a day tournaments. What about fasting? Probably not a good idea immediately prior to an event.

Thanks for reading my whinge :-)  Next post will be more positive, promise!