So ends Teamleague 38 as far as Team Current_Affairs' participation is concerned; it's now down to the playoffs for the top two sides from each section.
As I mentioned previously, I swindled our Great Dictator into taking my board in the final round and a fine job he did too. What he describes as "possibly the most boring game of Chess ever played" I call "putting points on the scoreboard" - half a point anyway. When Plebusan does condescend to enter battle, he usually gets some business done. There's leadership by example for you.
On the whole, the team had a rough trot this season after a promising first round. For myself, I'm relatively happy with my performance over the four games I played, first saving a lost game after falling for an opening trap, then winning with Black against a lower rated opponent, drawing a game I should have won (by missing a simple tactic!), and fairly confidently drawing my fourth game.
The draws were all against players rated about 150 points more than me, so while I didn't exactly set the board on fire I made significant improvement on the previous two seasons and I'm starting to feel a little more in control of my game again.
There's talk of our dropping back to the U1800 section next season. On the one hand this might be a good idea simply from the point of view of our players regaining some confidence since we'll be one of the stronger teams in U1800 rather than the weakest team in U2000. On the other hand I'm always one for the idea of playing stronger opposition; the more they beat you the more they teach you how to win and I think my experience in Teamleague over three seasons bears this out.
Either way, next season I'll probably face similar strength opponents as this season since our higher boards have been losing rating points while I've been gaining them so the board order will have to change around a bit. We have a fairly flat rating profile across our team, but a lot of teams stack their side with high rated top boards and low rated bottom boards to bring the team average under the section limit.
A masthead saying "This account has been suspended" has appeared in a few of my older posts. This is in the place-holder for replayable games linked to chesspublisher.com and seems to be an 'issue' with chesspublisher, not my blogger account. 'Issue' is the euphemism IT people use when they mean "there's a problem here but I haven't got the vaguest idea what it is", but I suppose it means I'll have to look around for another way to post games if the situation doesn't magically resolve itself soon.
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2 comments:
Hi,
Try http://chesstuff.blogspot.com/2008/11/how-to-publish-chess-game-on-your-blog.html for loads of info on publishing games.
His ideas work perfectly ( I tried on my own home page ) and are easy to use.
Commiserations to you on TL. My Monkey Club 1800s also didn't do the business this time. Although I didn't play this season, I still followed the games. Bit of an addiction :) I hope I'll play in the next TL, but am going through the cycle of doing other things than Chess.
I suspect its the onset of Spring and the sun ( even here in damp Dutch climes the sun shows itself : 20+ degrees in March is not to be sniffed at ! ).
I have intentions to work through some games today ( it being a holiday: Easter Monday in Aus, Tweede Paasdag in Holland ), but the sun is continuing its appearance so its either something else or sitting with a board in the courtyard :) Focus required !
Good luck with the publishing, its a very neat viewer.
Cheers,
ZwartePaard
Thanks for the tip ZwartePaard, I'll check it out.
Simian
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