First of all I have to apologise for my lack of updates. I have been playing far too much chess recently and I need a break! At some point in the future I will do an update of everything that I have played in. Suffice to say things were going well, but of late I have been making some stupid blunders.

At the moment I am playing the Dieppe open. Dieppe is a lovely little town in Brittany, France. The schedule has been a little bit hectic with 2 games a day on occasions. No surprise to say that I have scored 0.5/2 for the 9 o’clock games, against an average of 2180. In both games I managed to blunder a piece! Not good!

I was very pissed off after today’s morning game where I throw a whole piece away in a winning position. This made me very angry for the afternoon game. My target was a young French player with a rating of 2200+. Anyway onto the game…

1 d4 Nf6 c4 g6 3 h4!?

I am going to be bold and call this ‘The Williams anti-Gruenfeld variation’. The idea is to make the opponent think from an early stage, so far I have scored a respectable 3/4 with this weird pawn lunge. The point of it will become clear.

3…d5?! This is already a mistake! Another dodgy line is 3…Bg7 4 Nc3 d5?! when White can play 5 h5! Nxh5 6 cxd5 c6 7 e4! cxd5 8 e5 with a good position. Black should transpose to a Kings Indian or Benko.

4 cxd5 Qxd5 The problem with 4…Nxd5 is that after a later e4 Black has not got the option of capturing on c3, which is the normal plan in the Gruenfeld. 5 h5!? was what I was planning when the h-pawn has already caused some havoc.

5 Nc3 Qa5 6 Bd2 Qb6 7 h5 gxh5

I already like White’s position Black has wasted a lot of time moving his queen about, pawns are irrelevant.

8 e4 Qxd4 Greedy! 9 Nf3 Qb6 9…Qd8 10 Bc4 with 11 Qb3 to follow. 10 Be3! Come on take them all! 10…Qxb2 ok!

11 Bd4! After this move Black’s position falls apart, the queen has been rushing around the board but Black has forgotten to develop his pieces or to get his king safe. 11…c5 12 Rb1 Qa3 13 Nb5 Qa5+ 14 Bc3 Qd8

So whilst Black’s queen has done a tour de force around the board. I have managed to position my pieces on some very active squares. 15 e5 Ng4 15…Ne4 16 Qa4 16 e6 f6

Now a little puzzle, can you find White’s attractive finish? 17 Qa4! threatening 18 Nd6 or 18 Nc7 mate. 17… Nc6 18 Rd1! Qb6

And now for the I felt a bit better after playing 19 Ba5!

when my opponent resigned. I will let you work out the mates. Anyway I better rush for now as I need to eat!!