Lessons From Liverpool: Time Waits For No Man

MY round-one game reached the following position after 15 moves.

Black has just played 15...Be8-g6 in Mike O'Mahony (1726 ECF/1780 Fide) - Spanton (1947 ECF/1982 Fide)  

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There followed 16.Bd2 a6 17.a4 Rc8, when Black has at least a slight edge, according to Stockfish17 and Dragon1, but the position is not clearcut and there are lots of possible paths to explore.

The engines suggest continuing with 18.Nf2 or 18.b4, but instead came the inexplicable (we did not have a postmortem) 18.Bc1.

This undevelops the bishop and disconnects White's rooks. Not only that, but the bishop is bad, so it is not as if Black is ever likely to want to play ...Nxd2.

As I wrote in my notes to the game: "If this were White's best move, White would be in a bad way indeed, but the chances of it being best are negligible."

LESSON: time in chess is a valuable commodity, especially in a position which, while currently semi-closed, could very quickly see line-opening pawn advances and/or exchanges.