I realised the other night that we hadn’t yet added Johnny Marr to the Biographies section of the site, so I’ve rectified that glaring omission. You’ll find it at www.edinburghchessclub.co.uk/biog-marr.php
If anyone has any other photos of Johnny, any stories you’d like to share, or any games of his that might be of interest then please get in touch with me – bill@billmarshall.co.uk
The World Senior Team Chess Championship 2023 has been taking place at Lake Ohrid in North Macedonia.
The Scottish team in the over 50’s event included our new President Raj Bhopal, and former Treasurer Rob McAndrew. Raj played on top board and despite strong opposition added 10 points to his FIDE rating.
Following up on the previous post here are the final placings and a short summary by Alan Scrimgour.
Scotland finished in 23rd position out of 42 teams, winning 4 matches and losing 5.
The players’ score were:
| Peter Jamieson | 4½/7 |
| Alastair White | 2/6 |
| Alan Scrimgour | 2½/7 |
| David Levy | 3½/7 |
| Raj Bhopal | 6½/8 |
It was good to finish with a win after a hard competition.
We all agreed that the tournament had been well run with friendly and
efficient arbiters in a spacious playing hall, the hotel was excellent and
Dresden an excellent location with many cultural attractions that would
make for a good city break destination.
Full report: www.chessscotland.com/news/european-seniors-dresden-2022/
Club members Alastair White and Raj Bhopal are representing Scotland at the European Seniors team event for players over 65.
The team is performing pretty well so far with three wins (all 3-1) and four very narrow (2½-1½) losses. Alastair, playing mostly on board 2, has so far scored 4 draws and 1 loss, while Raj is in fine form with 4½/5 on board 4.
Details can be read on the Chess Scotland site
The following game is one by Raj
Notes by Raj
This was a tense positional struggle, where I had a modest advantage throughout most of the game. Black equalised once or twice but at no time had any advantage. Everything hung on whether White could take advantage of Black's bad Bishop.
Paradoxically, and surprisingly, White offered an exchange of bishops,
leaving knights and 6 pawns each. This offer of exchange must have come as a welcome relief, but exchanging bishops was a mistake for black. White's king penetrated into the black queenside. There seemed to be, nonetheless, an impasse. White had, however, reserved one tempo. P to a4 created a Zugwang. Black's blockading king had to give way for the loss of a pawn, making the a pawn passed. Black resigned on the 47th move when material was equal.
I’ve been making some changes to the technical capabilities of the menu system of the club’s main website to allow us to include more history, biographies, and articles. The first visible change is the addition of an Articles section under the History menu which has as its first entry an article I’ve been working on about the remarkable flowering of talent which occurred in junior chess in Edinburgh during the 1960s and 70s. This is entitled A Golden Age for Edinburgh Juniors – the 1960s and 70s.
I hope you enjoy it and if anyone has anything further that they can contribute to it then I’d be delighted to hear from you.
Equally if anyone would like to write anything about the club’s history or personalities then do contact me – bill@billmarshall.co.uk