I had a bit of bad luck in a tournament today, was a piece down and sacrificed a second one to get rid of all the pawns so my opponent had to fist round up all my loose pawns and then try and checkmate with knight and bishop with very little time left on the clock.
So, the first stage of the plan goes accordingly and he gets my last pawn with his king being trapped in the cornner mine was due to be mated in, a good start I thought. Next was alot of blockading and time wasting in the centre while I got my king slowly driven back to the wrong corner, taking alot of moves.
Now I thought I could sit here for a few moves shuffling to waste even more time and get him ever closer to the 50 move mark.
Then disaster- I took my mind off it for a moment, and got mated in the wrong corner, I couldnt believe it - I didnt even know it was possible to mate on that side of the board!
So after that, I was almost out of contention, having to beat the top seed with the black pieces in the final which I had a go at but ultimately had to accept a draw - if I had just sent my king the other direction, I would have come joint first with that final result - its funny really how the complexion of a whole tournament can be changed by a single move.