Arduous Attrition

Met up with V at Adam Road for lunch, couple of tea, and a three hour long game of chess. The game opened with a classic Ruy Lopez, though black opted for the Bird's Defence (ECO C61), 3...Nd4, which is said to be an uncommon variation in modern praxis. The opening quickly escalated to a centre blockade and board-wide tension. In this game, pawn structure played a central theme and black's play was intuitive and decisive enough to eliminate a potential white knight's role in black's backward pawn structure. The middle game was tense and dragged out with black frustrating white's tactical build up... at one point I as white had my queen and two rooks stacked against the black on the queenside but even until the last moment I never really broke through. In the final analysis, black's impatient pawn pushes and advances of his pieces beyond his support fire resulted in unfavourable exchanges that cumulatively costs the game. V is right that Bobby Fischer would not be proud of this... too many tactical ideas failed to launch to great effect. Personally, I was lucky to get away with a win by attrition. It was nevertheless a rigorous mental workout in a game with plenty of tactical and strategic considerations and a meaningful catching up with an old friend.

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