Some fairly gentle pleasure and mild to medium irritation

by Jonathan Speelman
2/19/2023 – It was in May 2016 that I launched this column, initially as an Agony Column in which readers could showcase their triumphs and disasters, and today I’m returning to the roots with a couple of my own games. Of course, I care very much when I’m playing, but ‘agony’ and ‘ecstasy’ are too strong for the emotions that chess normally engenders in me nowadays, and I’ve gone for ‘fairly gentle pleasure’ at victory and ‘mild to medium irritation’ at defeat. | Photo: David Llada
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My battles

[Note that Jon Speelman also looks at the content of the article in video format, here embedded at the end of the article.]

It was in May 2016 that I launched this column, initially as an Agony Column in which readers could showcase their triumphs and disasters.

Four years later it was rebooted as a freestyle vehicle for anything interesting that came up — but today I’m returning to the roots with a couple of my own games. Of course, I care very much when I’m playing, but agony and ecstasy are too strong for the emotions that chess normally engenders in me nowadays, and I’ve gone for fairly gentle pleasure at victory and mild to medium irritation at defeat. 

The games in question are from the 4NCL which met last weekend near Warwick. Post pandemic, we’ve finally returned to a normal all-play-all (after the extended experiment in which we used a model briefly introduced by the French before they discarded it, which enabled 16 teams to do battle over 11 rounds). But the all-play-all has been engineered so that the top seeds meet over the final two weekends, so that at the moment my team Wood Green, Chessable White Rose and the defending champions Chess.com Manx Liberty all have 12/12 match points. 

4NCL Chess

The crosstable | 4NCL website

Last weekend, I played two Irish players, Killian Delaney and Connor Murphy. Delaney had beaten me as white last season in a very impressive game, and I was hoping at least as white to play decently. As it was, I had one of the cleanest wins I’ve had for ages, and we were both able to go and watch Ireland play France at Rugby within an hour or so of the round’s start!

On Sunday, I played the very talented Connor Murphy and slightly pushed my luck in the opening. I got a reasonable middlegame, but he then totally outplayed me before erring in the run-up to the time control. We then reached a fascinating endgame and exchanged errors near the end. I’m never particularly surprised by my own sporadic incompetence, but was (mildly to mediumly) irritated by the hopeless 45...Bxe2??, when if I'd taken my time — and I had oodles of it — then I would have realized that 45...Bd6 sets White enormous problems. 

I hope you enjoy the games. 

 
 

Select an entry from the list to switch between games

On this DVD you will be taken on a journey through what is arguably the sharpest opening line known to men.

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Jonathan Speelman, born in 1956, studied mathematics but became a professional chess player in 1977. He was a member of the English Olympic team from 1980–2006 and three times British Champion. He played twice in Candidates Tournaments, reaching the semi-final in 1989. He twice seconded a World Championship challenger: Nigel Short and then Viswanathan Anand against Garry Kasparov in London 1993 and New York 1995.