In the latest round of Premier Division matches, there were 2 wins for the 1st Team.

Clark’s Bar on Dundas Street is the new (temporary) home for Wandering Dragons. The first shock of the night of our match against them was finding out that the room was double booked with a Debating Society! A compromise was reached, meaning that 2 games were played in the main bar. So it was hard to get a feel of what was going on in the match as a whole. But I have the feeling we were doing well overall, and ran out winners with a 4-2 scoreline.

My game against Elliot Sloan featured a thematic exchange sacrifice:

Edinburgh 1 4-2 Wandering Dragons 1
Bremner ½ Orr
Wallden 1-0 Fleming
Berry 1-0 Sloan
Brechin 0-1 Heron
Rutherford ½ Taylor
Dawson 1-0 Kynoch

The following week we again won 4-2, this time against Badgers Brook. They surprised last season by maintaining a title challenge following promotion, and were level with us going into the match.

Edinburgh 1 4-2 Badgers Brook

Bremner ½ Cooke, S
Berry 1-0 McGeoch
Roberts ½ Bell
Brechin 1-0 Cooke, M
Kafka 0-1 Newton
Rutherford 1-0 Biancalana

A mass exodus took place at the weekend of club members heading for Oban’s 2019 Chess Congress  – with stunning views en route and on arrival

Snow passess traversed en route to Oban
Oban Harbour

 

 

 

 

 

….. with strange sights in the evening before Round 1!

A unicorn piece is introduced into the game at Oban Chess Congress

The Oban congress is one of the most popular events on the Scotland chess circuit. The event has been superbly organised for many years by Duncan Campbell and his team. The Congress was held in the Royal Hotel, Oban with four tournaments taking place, Open, Challengers (U-1900)  Major (U-1600) and Minor (U-1350) with over 120 players coming from all round Scotland and the UK.

And the winners were:

Top slots were achieved by both FM Neil Berry (the club’s president!) and Martin Brejter.

Neil came first equal in the Open and Martin first equal in the Major with Keith Aitchison winning a grading prize in the Challengers section.

Martin – Major First

In the Major Martin came out of round 4 as outright leader with 3.5/4 …..

Martin taking sole lead after round 4

….. but was held to a draw by fellow club member Ian Whittaker (on 3/4) in a tense final round game where Martin had pressure throughout but Ian finally won a pawn in the latter part of a tricky N+3Ps v B+3Ps endgame with two of Martin’s P’s on the same colour as his bishop – but a draw was finally agreed with both players down to just over a minute each in extra time …..

Also playing were Mike Ridge (who drew with IM Mark Orr in Round 2!) and Ben Ridge in the Open, Robert Kane in the Challengers, and Allan Buchan in the Major.

Many thanks for an excellent congress well organised by Duncan Campbell and his crew of arbiters and assistants.