Walking the tightrope

Having decided to give the Grunfeld a miss for the near future, I need to find an alternative defence the 1.d4. One correspondent has suggested I take up the Stonewall, but I'll need to do some more research before I take that option.
Instead I'm falling back on my most recent No.2 opening, the Semi-Slav. I played it for part of the 2008 Olympiad (with somewhat mixed results), but at least the games haven't been that one sided. It's most recent outing was at Street Chess last Saturday. I usually play as the 'house man' (ie only play to help avoid a bye), so my opponents can often be quite random. In this case I was up against William Booth, who out rates me a few points, and our games are usually quite tactical. This game was no exception as for most of it I seemed to be facing certain death. But I managed to hang in long enough to launch a counter attack.  However by the time I got going I had under 60 seconds (it was G/15m), and lost on time while attempting to eliminate his remaining pawns!


Booth,William - Press,Shaun [D44]
Street Chess, 17.08.2013