The final round of the Bob Brooking Round Robin had me paired against Sylvester Urban, with four players potentially in contention for first place in the division, depending on other results. Although I liked my position early, Sylvester managed to generate some counterplay on the king side & I felt I was in a bit of trouble for a while. The critical position arose on move 21, where I chose to play Rxg4, going into somewhat complicated territory, which I further complicated by playing 22.Rxg6 (rather than bxc3 immediately) preferring to give up an exchange than have two pieces for a rook & a pawn or two, as I would have lost the initiative. As it happened, I misplayed a few later moves & allowed my e pawn to be taken, after which Sylvester had a definite advantage. After some further exchanges, I tried to generate some play, but seemed to be making little progress until Sylvester played 44...Rb2+. Once his rook left the back rank, it allowed my pieces to get somewhat active & after Sylvester played 46...Kg7, the game should have been over very quickly. Of course I managed to miss a simple win with 54.Qd8+, but thankfully I was able to avoid Sylvester's attempted perpetual check & eventually win the game.
David Beaumont won his game to win group B, with my 3/5 enough for outright second in the group. Final cross tables for all divisions are on ChessChat.
David also managed to win the MCC Grand Prix as a result. It is good to see someone who is a regular at the club, who played in most (if not all) MCC GP events during the year, win the top prize!
That was the final tournament for the year at MCC ... so bring on 2013!
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