After catching a 6am flight from Iceland to Paris I made my way to the final weekend of the French League (via the Aviation club on the Champs-Elysées! Well worth a visit if you get a chance). My team, Rueil Malmaison had a mathematical chance of getting promoted to the first division if we won both our matches and all the other teams lost. Not very likely but still a punt is a punt.

On Saturday, I was paired against Dragos Dumitrache a strong 2498 player with a cool first name. Now I knew that if I scored 2/2 this weekend, I could get back all the elo points that I had thrown away in Iceland. Anyway, we found ourselves in the following position:

I was not too pleased with my position; on his last move Black had moved his queen from b5 to d3. This was far superior to the other option, which was moving the queen to c4. Black now has the possibility of swapping queens off with …Qd2. I will tell you a little secret. A little bit of my heart always sinks when the queens are swapped off. I want to keep the queens on for the attack!

The move I wanted to play here was:

19 f4?! with the aim of launching an attack against the Black king, the problem with this plan was 19…Nxf4! 20 Nxf4 Qxg3 21 Rf3 Qh4 and even though Black’s queen looks a bit strange on h4 it will quickly rejoin the game via e7, for example, 22 Nd3 Nd7 and Black is a pawn up. For the above reasons, I decided to play the tricky move

19 Kh2!?At least now the knight on g3 is defended so a plan based around f4 creates a mess, which is just what I want. 19 Rd1 is very dull and White can’t claim any advantage after 19…Qxd1 20 Qxd1 Rxd1+ 21 Rxd1 Ba6 because if I try 22 Rd6 then Black can respond with the strong 22…Ne8! For example 23 Rxc6 Bb7 trapping the White rook.

After 19 Kh2!? Black very quickly played 19…Ba6?! This looks very natural but Black should have been thinking more about what my intended plan was and for this reason he should have played 19…Qd2 intending to swap the queens off, when the advance f4 loses a lot of its venom. The game continued 20 f4!? With the simple plan of starting an attack on the kingside. 20…exf4 Again 20…Qd2 was worth considering. 21 Nxf4 Qd6 21…Qd2 allows 22 e5 with complications that favour White.22 Nxe6+ And now Black played the horrible 22…fxe6? This lets me launch a viscous attack. Black should have played 22…Qxe6 when he has no problems.

23 b5! This move gains time so that I can throw my queen over towards Black’s king. 23…axb5 24 Qg5! Black’s king is now facing a very nasty onslaught. 24…Ng8 The best place for Black’s knight. It needs to defend as many squares around the Black king as it can. 25 e5 The most aggressive move, the pawn attacks the queen, opens up White’s bishop on g2 and allows White’s knight to jump into e4. 25 axb5 was also strong.

25…Qd2 Too late! Black should have played this move a long time ago!

26 Ne4! I don’t mind swapping the queens off now as Black will lose at least the exchange and quite possibly his king. 26…Qb2 26…Qxg5 27 Nxg5 threatens 28 Nxe6+, 28 Rf7+ and 28 Bxh8. Too many threats for Black to deal with.

27 Rab1 Qa2 I now played the simply 28 Rad1 and Black quickly lost.

Aly and the team also won so a good start to the weekend.

After everyone had finished we drifted towards a restaurant to eat some food and drink some wine. We ended up at a specialist ‘Crèpe’ family run restaurant, it was basically a place that serves pancakes but very nice pancakes!

Myself and Aly were still knackered from the night before so after the meal we decided to head back to our hotel. The hotel was located in the middle of nowhere so we expected a peaceful night and a well-deserved rest… Oh how wrong we were!

Around 3am in the morning it suddenly sounded like The Glastonbury Festival had just been transported to the room next door. Our room then started to shake will the odd picture rattling on the wall.

Was I still in a dream or was the room about to take off, on orbit to planet rave?

Myself and Aly soon awoke from the land of nod. The slamming and opening of the door in the room next to us went on for about 15 minutes, this was followed by an intensely high pitch laugh which must have come from a drunk clown or some similar creature. I was a about to put some clothes on and go outside when Aly advised me against it, probably in fear of being attacked by the mad clown that was lurking outside room rave.

Then all of a sudden everything started to die down and the commotion was over. The only thing that concerned us now was the snoring noise coming from next door. Was the clown creature convulsing on his own tongue? You have to imagine that the walls are about an inch thick with no sound insulation. No expense spared at these French League matches!

Anyway, we eventually got back to sleep. Early the next morning, I decided to wake myself up by playing Guns N’ Roses very loudly from my computer, call me petty but take that, my clown friend!

I later found out at breakfast that the people staying next door were members of another team, indeed a bunch of nice guys who I have previously partied with at Hastings. Aly had recognised them from the night before but she was worried that if she had told me their true identifies then I would have gone and joined them! She knows me too well!

Anyway, on to the next game which was an exciting affair. I was paired against Ioan Cosma a strong IM with a rating around the 2450 mark. The first interesting moment came after move 11.

I had managed to sacrifice a pawn in the opening leading to the following position. White has compensation as his central pawns are strong and it is not clear if Black’s king will ever find a completely safe place to reside. One interesting variation that I was analysing at the board was the following:

11…g4 12 Ne5 Qxd4 13 Nxc6 (13 Rad1 is the other main option when White retains compensation for the sacrificed material) 13…Qc5

And in this position I was trying to work out the consequences of 14 Nd4! which is pretty much forced. Some lines that I was looking at were:

14…Qxd4 15 Nxb5 Qxe4 16 Qd2!? With some vague threats against the Black king but I expect Black is just better, being a piece up does come in useful sometimes.

Anyway, Black decided against playing 11…g4 and instead continued by playing 11…Nh5 12 d5 I played this without much thought. Black’s king is in the centre so why not open it up? 12…Nxg3 13 hxg3 g4 14 dxc6 gxf3 15 cxd7+ Bxd7 16 Bf3 Bg7 17 e5 Rc8 18 Rfe1 Black is better around here, my ‘attack’ has come to nothing. 18…b4 19 Nd1 Rc5 20 Re4 Bxe5 21 Rxc4 Rxc4 22 Qxc4 The following position was reached.

Black has the advantage of the two bishops and a slightly better pawn structure so he should enjoy a save advantage, hence his decision to swap queens off by playing 22…Qd4 another option was 22…Bxg3!? which is risky as it gives me time to bring my knight into play but a pawn is a pawn! For example, 23 Ne3 Be5 24 Rd1 this stops Black from castling, the position is very unclear one fun variation is 24…Bxb2 25 Nd5!? exd5 26 Qd2+ Be6 27 Qxb2 0-0 28 Qf6 and the position looks dynamically equal to me.

Anyway the game continued 23 Rc1 Qxc4 24 Rxc4 Bd6 25 Bc6! I need to swap off one pair of bishops otherwise Black’s bishop pair will just be too strong. 25…Ke7 26 Bxd7 Kxd7 27 Ne3 Rb8 28 Rd4 Ke7 29 Nc4 This is the one big advantage that I have, my knight is very well placed on c4 and it can never be kicked away by a Black pawn. 29…Bc5 30 Rd3 f6 31 Kf1 And now we probably reached the critical position for the result of the game.

With correct play from both sides I expect the position should be a draw. Both sides have their pluses:

Black has a rook and bishop, which tend to work better than a rook and knight in the ending; Black’s e-pawn can also become a major strength.

White’s knight is well placed on c4 and he has no real weaknesses.

Fortunately for me Black now played the horrible move 31…e5? This is positional wrong. Black should avoid fixing his pawns on the same coloured square as his bishop as any ending could become very bad for him. Indeed after my response 32 g4! I also managed to place my pawns on light squares which means that Black’s bishop with never be able to attack them. Black should have played 31…h5! fixing my g-pawn pawn on g3 when he may even be slightly better. Anyway the game continued 32…Ke6? 32…Rg8 33 f3 was better as it stops my following plan 33 Rh3! And all of a sudden Black is in serious trouble. His pieces will become passive and his pawns are positioned on the wrong coloured squares. The game continued 33…Rg8 34 f3 Rd8 35 Ke2 Bf8 36 Rh1 Rc8 37 b3 Rc6 38 Rc1 Ra6 39 Rc2 f5 40 gxf5+ Kxf5 41 g4 + Kg5 42 Ke3 h5 43 gxf5 Kf5 44 Re2 Bh6+ 45 Kd3 Bf4 46 Rg2 Rh6 47 Rg7 Rxh5 48 Rf7+ Ke6 49 Rxa7 Rh2 50 Ra6+ Kd5 I now managed to find a nice finish to the game

Black’s king is very close to being in a mating net and after 51 a3! Black can consider resigning. 51…Rf2? 51…bxa3 was better but White should win without too much trouble 52 b4 threatening 53 Rd6++ 52…Rh6! The only move 53 Ra5+ Ke6 54 Rxa3 and the ending should be winning. After 51…Rf2 it is forced mate 52 Rd6+ Kc5 53 axb4+ Kxb4 54 Rb6+ and here Black resigned as it is mate after 54…Kc5 55 b4+ Kd5 56 Rd6++

So a successful couple of days that saved me some rating points. My team also managed to win the match but unfortunately the results didn’t go our way so no promotion to division 1. At least there is always next year!