Playing in a team again

In my last post I wrote about how we moved to a little town close to Pécs, and it turned out that this little town, Szentlőrinc, has a chess team which plays in the second league of Hungary.

The way I found the team was actually quite interesting, as it almost felt like the hand of fate was moving: we were still living in Pécs, looking for a house to buy, when a Saturday morning it occured to me that I could look up what chess teams are in the area. I was a bit hesitant, because the league games in Hungary are on Sunday mornings, and I normally have a lot of lessons on Sundays, so I didn't see how I could play anyhow. My openings and my whole chess were also rusty, and I didn't feel like putting in the necessary work to play proper chess again; but I finally decided that it makes no harm to check the options online.

It turned out that both Pécs and Szentlőrinc had a team in the second league; and those two teams happened to play against each other exactly the next day; and the playing venue was exactly on the next street. 

"Wow, if it is that convenient, then I should really check it out." - I thought. So I went. 

When I entered the playing hall, I found the two team captains talking to each other. We had a funny conversation:

Szentlőrinc Captain: So, you want to play for us? May I ask whay your current rating is?

Me: It is 2203.

Pécs Captain: 2203? Well, why Szentlőrinc then? You realize you could also play for us, do you?

Szentlőrinc Captain: No, you are not going to play for them. You will play for us!

I guess that how it must feel to be the pretty girl at a party...

Anyhow, I chose the Szentlőrinc team (as we were going to move there), and played for them in the final five rounds. I made 4 points out of 5, playing mostly on the third, sometimes on the second board.

What actually surprised me how many of my opponents acted like sitting ducks - i.e. thay came to the game with zero opening preparation. (I heard from my teammates that it is quite typical in the second league nowadays. They told me the story of a guy who managed to lose against the same opponent, playing the same opening line as last year, and making the exact same blunder as last year. After losing the game, he asked his opponent: "We played something similar before, didn't we?")

For example, this guy from my first game, who always plays that dodgy c7-c6, Nb8-a6, Na6-c7 setup against everything in the King's Indian. All I had to do is to pick the best line to counter that, which must be the Four Pawns Attack. In the Four Pawns, Black MUST react in the centre. You cannot just sit in the corners as my opponent tried to do, because White's centre will quickly come at you.

Or that guy from my third game. He had a game for the same variation in an earlier season, so during my preparation I was wondering if I should play that variation against him at all: surely he analyzed his previous game thoroughly and must remember the stuff?! 

As it turned out, there was no reason to worry: he had no idea how to play the line and tried to figure it out at the board. All I had to do was to play my opening preparation until move 13, so I only spent 15 minutes on the whole game. 

This is my third win. My opponent was unprepared again, and decided at the board to play the Exchange Variation. He was doing all right in the opening, but then blundered a piece at move 18.

When he played his move, he immediately realized it was a blunder, and instead of trying to make a poker face, he looked straight at me with a scared face. This is exactly what you shouldn't do after a blunder - even if I hadn't seen his mistake, he would have given it away.