It was a pleasure to return once again to the splendid and spacious playing halls of the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate. After a few rounds, while I was pacing the floor waiting for my opponent to move, I took in the top dozen or so boards, and it was striking to observe that for every IM/GM/experienced player there was a tiny child! These kids are becoming a formidable force at ever younger ages, and it was not even surprising that when the dust had settled, a nine-year-old was one of the joint tournament winners. I say it was no surprise, because I had already witnessed Supratit Banerjee from Scotland draw with GM-strength player Ameet Ghasi in round 1 of Hastings a few weeks earlier.
Sharing first place with Supratit were GM Peter Wells, the strong and solid Paul Townsend, who also tied for first place last year, and 15-year-old Lorenzo Fava. Dropping one draw too many to be in this pack were the top two seeds, IM Gediminas Sarakauskas and myself.
Apart from my failure to arrive in time for round 1 at Bristol last April, I've been winning these British weekenders non-stop since Hull back in 2021, and here I had no regrets, because a draw with Black against Peter Wells is fine and both Lorenzo Fava and Piotr Denderski played at a very high level - in fact with 98% and 97% accuracy respectively.
Back to the star of the show, and here is the game which brought Supratit Banerjee, four years younger than Scotland's perhaps better-known prodigy, Frederick Waldhausen Gordon, into a share of first place:
Michael Bulford - Supratit Banerjee
4NCL Harrogate (5), 01.2024
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Be7 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.Bg5 0–0 6.e3 c6 7.Rc1 Nbd7 8.a3 b6 9.cxd5 exd5 10.Bd3 Re8 11.0–0
11…Nf8?! It was better either to complete his development with 11...Bb7 or ease his position with 11...Ne4. Instead, Black invites pressure against c6.
12.Qa4 b5 13.Qc2 N6d7 14.Bxe7 Qxe7
15.Na2?! Positionally motivated, but striking immediately with 15 e4! would have caught Black napping.
15...Bb7 16.Nb4 Rac8 17.Bf5 g6 18.Bxd7 Nxd7 19.Nd3
White has obtained a grip on the dark squares, and the bishop on b7 looks particularly lame.
19...Rc7 20.Nc5 Bc8 21.Nxd7 Bxd7 22.Qd2 Rec8 23.Rc5 f6 24.Rfc1 Qe4 25.Ne1 h5
26.Qc2 Also possible was the immediate 26 Nd3 to b4, increasing the pressure.
26...Qe8 27.Nd3 Bf5 28.Qd2 Bxd3 29.Qxd3 h4 30.h3
30…f5 I like that Black is playing optimistically on the kingside, as if to say that he has his weaknesses on the other flank under control.
31.Qd1 Re7 32.Qb3 Rec7 33.R1c3 g5 34.Qd1 a6 35.Qf3 Qg6
36.g4 In principle White is right to open lines while his opponent is distracted defending c6, but there was no rush, and I might have brought my king over to the queenside first.
36...fxg4 37.Qxg4 Rf8
38.Rxd5?? A losing blunder. White should potter around with something like 38 f3, and decide later whether to break with e4 or f4. Supratit is certainly well in the game by now, though. In some ways this game is typical of a talented youngster getting the better of a more experienced opponent. Michael Bulford is a strong player with good positional understanding, but Supratit remained tactically sharp and vigilant, and was ready to pounce when the opportunity arose. I remember 'winning ugly’ many times in the early days of my chess adventures!
38...Qb1+ 39.Kg2
39…Rxf2+! Very nice!
40.Kxf2 Rf7+
0–1