Category Archives: Team results

As part of its bicentenary celebrations Edinburgh Chess Club hosted a Schaakstad Apeldoorn team from the Netherlands over the weekend of July 15 to 17th, 2022. 

The visitors had a very strong 10-man team, led by Team Captain IM Merijn van Delft, which included 2x IMs and 2x FMs!

Edinburgh Team Captain Neil Berry (left) and Event Organiser Henk Bulthuis (right)

We held a Blitz tournament on the Friday evening and then a 10-board match between an Edinburgh Club team and the Apeldoorn Schaakstad Club team on Saturday afternoon followed by dinner.

The Schaakstad Apeldoorn Team
The Edinburgh Chess Club Team

Altogether there were 27 players in Friday’s Blitz (3 minutes plus 2 seconds per move) with most players managing between 8 and 11 games in the evening.

The visitors were on fire with IM Merijn van Delft scoring 10/11 so he was declared the winner followed closely in second place by IM Nico Zwirs with 8/9.  Highest scoring Edinburgh player was Willie Rutherford on 7.5/9.

The match in progress

The 10 board match (1.5 hours each per game plus 30 second increments per move) on Saturday was closely fought with the Edinburgh club eventually narrowly winning by the close margin of 5.5 to 4.5 – final results were:

Match Results

The event was sponsored by Broadex Technologies with Edinburgh Napier University Conference & Events providing a sponsorship discount for the visiting team’s accommodation.

Broadex is a high-tech company with an engineering team and production facility in Livingston Scotland and headquartered in China.

Final comments in the visitors book from IM Merijn and Team Captain Henk!

A most enjoyable weekend for all!

On Saturday evening the club played a return match against the Mechanics Institute of San Francisco played over 10 boards on chess.com (2 games on each board: 15 minutes for the game with 2 second move increments) .

The game was broadcast (and recorded) on Twitch with commentary by a great line up made of GM Nick de Firmian, FM Paul Whitehead, WCM Allyson Wong along with MI’s Chess Director Abel Talamantez and MI’s General Manager Dr Judit Sztaray.

We lost 14-6 in the end against a strong side, but managed some good performances.  The top two boards ended equal with FM Neil drawing both his games on top board against IM Josiah Stearman whilst Adam deserves special mention for winning one game against GM Patrick Wolff.   Berislav managed half a point versus IM Elliott Winslow.  Ian held US National Master Mike Walder to a draw in their first game but whilst fighting hard in their second game got into time trouble and lost defending an opposite bishops endgame.

Some games from the match, annotated by GM Nick de Firmian, are in MI’s recent newsletter.

Message from Abel and the Mechanics’ Chess Team:

Hi Neil,

We wanted to give thanks to you and your team for helping organize the club match. It is great to have this kind of positive interaction between our clubs and communities, and we look forward to continuing to engage and collaborate in the future.

Edinburgh’s Team:

Neil Berry (thebalernobull)
Adam Bremner (AllStarShark)
Berislav Marusic (Sunshine1978)
Henk Bulthuis (henkbu)
Ian Whittaker (scotsgeek)
AJ Rushing (anacampserote)
Calum McGillivray (Penguin89C)
Ross Blackford (Ragnar006)
Robert Kane (fiercebadger)
Ian Johnston (SplashLeChat)

Full results can be found here on Chess.com.

Dear Club Member,

Last Tuesday we faced Liverpool Chess Club, the oldest chess club in England and established in 1837 (15 years our junior!). The final score was a win for Edinburgh, 123-114. We’ll hopefully be able to arrange a return match.

This week’s club events:

Wednesday Blitz Arena (7.45pm start, 1822 to join)

Saturday return match against Mechanics’ Institute (7pm)  Similar to last time, with a couple of tweaks. It will be 2 rapid games of 15+2 against the same opponent.  The match will take place on chess.com.  We’ll determine the pairings manually, so please let me know in the next couple of days if you would like to play.

Thanks

Neil

Dear Club Member,

Edinburgh Chess Academy

First of all a shout out to our Tiger Cubs coach Andrew Green, who through the Edinburgh Chess Academy has organised an online tournament for Scottish juniors with a £10,000 prize fund. The event takes place on June 12-13, and more details can be found on their website.  Please spread the word!

Scottish National Online Chess League (SNOCL)

The final round of the SNOCL  took place on Sunday. Unfortunately we finished with a couple of losses.  Thanks to those who played, and I did manage to win the afternoon blitz for a small amount of revenge.

This week’s events

Both start at 7.45pm.

Best wishes,
Neil

Dear Club Member

Last Saturday we had an online match against the Mechanic’s Institute from San Francisco. We lost a fairly well balanced match 15-11. The match was streamed by our opponents on their twitch channel. We are looking to set up a return match next month. [NB: The Mechanics Institute have included two annotated games from the match in their weekly newsletter]

One year ago we took the decision to close the club. We certainly did not anticipate the closure lasting this long. Hopefully with the vaccine rolling out, we will be able to open up over the summer. But this will depend on progress against the virus.

This weeks’ events are below. Both start at 7.45pm.

  • Tuesday Rapids (7 mins + 5s/move)
  • Wednesday Blitz (1822 to join)

Thanks

Neil