Speelman's Agony #82

by Jonathan Speelman
8/19/2018 – A "moment of madness" and a "snappy win" from an English chess coach. Want to join in the fun? Jon can always use more material from readers. If your games are selected for the Agony column, not only will you get free detailed commentary of your games by one of chess’s great authors and instructors, and former world no. 4 player, but you also win a free three-month ChessBase Premium Account!

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The once was a chess coach from Coventry...

This week's pair of games are by Paul Lam who writes:

Paul LamI am a chess coach from Coventry. I started playing chess in secondary school and made good progress, being selected to play for the England Junior Squad on several occasions, before school and then university studies kicked in.

I started playing chess again when I returned home to work at the University of Warwick and set up a children’s chess club, the Coventry Chess Academy, which boasts a large number of very talented junior players. Last year I decided to take the plunge, leaving the University to teach chess full-time and haven’t looked back since.

My opening taste is offbeat, my time management is appalling and an extremely busy schedule makes finding the time to work on my own game very difficult. It’s not all bad though as I find coaching to be far more enjoyable than playing these days!

Both of my games come from the 4NCL. My agony game was a loss in which I was winning but blundered horrifically in a moment of madness, costing my team the match and consigning us to relegation from division 1. The ecstasy game was a snappy win played in our return to division 1 two seasons later.

Paul then very generously went on to say that were his games selected, he wanted to use the free three-month Chessbase Premium Account not for himself but as a prize at one of the tournaments he runs and we're of course delighted to comply.

He wrote just a couple of notes for each game which I've marked as PL while all the rest is mine.

 

Click or tap the second game in the game list below the board to switch

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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.