Last Saturday Sussex were away against Surrey at their regular venue in Cheam. In their previous match, Sussex had suffered a thumping defeat at the hands of Middlesex; this time they put on a much improved performance, only losing narrowly (7.5 – 8.5) to a team graded much higher than them (on average 136 points).
I was up against Graham Keane on board 10. Prior to this game, I had played him four times over the years, on every occasion in county matches; I only manage a single draw alongside three defeats.
I had the White pieces. The game started with the Pirc Defence, which seems to be a real favourite of my opponent. I missed an opportunity to gain a definite advantage out of the opening, with the result that my opponent was able to equalise. Both sides maneuvered in the resulting middlegame; play remained about level, with Black perhaps having a very small advantage. I decided to offer an exchange of queens, but this proved to improve my opponent’s chances as he had a slight advantage in the resulting endgame due to his more active pieces. However, he missed some chances to increase the pressure, and indeed ended up getting in trouble after some miscalculations on his part. White was winning after Black’s error on the 43rd move; he did give Black a couple of chances to slip out with a draw by repetition, but Black was unable to spot these. White then finished the game with some accurate play.
I give the game below with some notes.