SNCL 2013/14 - Rounds 1 and 2

Crawford Macnab, Nick West

27 October 2013

Round One - first team beat North Ayrshire Crusaders

Another season in the SNCL.

In the morning match CSBOS 1 were playing North Ayrshire Crusaders.
A scary team name perhaps and they were pretty strong on paper.

David Stewart played a reverse Grunfeld with white pieces and used the initiative very well to create threats against the uncastled king. This resulted in a deadly Nc7+ that forced a check mate. David won.

Nigel Chapman played a wing gambit against the Sicilian Defence and his fast improving junior took great care to not rush and in the end Nigel’s queen on a2 although attacking queenside pawns proved to have strayed too far from his king and a mating attack could not be repelled. Nigel lost.

Thomas Grundy had double edged game which was drawn with repeated moves. Opponent was creating threats around the King but had long term weaknesses. Draw agreed.

I had to show great patience against Shivan Murdochy with the black pieces and in mutual time trouble agreed draw with a slight edge.

This proved to be important as Richard Scott won on time against another fast improving junior. Richard felt a little bad on claiming the win on time but he was already a pawn up with better position.

So we won 3-2 in the end.

	North Ayrshire Crusaders		North Ayrshire Crusaders		CSBOS 1
1	Shivan Murdochy	1986	½ - ½	Crawford T Macnab	1805
2	Daniel Deary	1706	1 - 0	Nigel Chapman	1774
3	David Deary	1754	½ - ½	Thomas Grundy	1678
4	Gary McPheator	1690	0 - 1	David Stewart	1614
5	Jack A N Stewart	1232	0 - 1	Richard Scott	1571
				2 - 3

Round Two - first team lost to East Kilbride

The first team played East Kilbride and lost 3½ to 1½.

I played a max lange attack against an opponent who was better prepared than I was and lost with attack petering out.

Nigel was at least level for a while but lost exchange and struggled to cope against the two rooks.

David had some attacking chances but position was blockaded and a draw was agreed.

Thomas was playing another improving junior and lost material to end up with multiple connected passed pawns against a knight. Opponent defended well and in end the pawns were exposed and lost. Richard won in the end with time running out with a mating attack on the h-file.

	CSBOS 1		CSBOS 1		East Kilbride
1	Crawford T Macnab	1805	0 - 1	Alan Jelfs	1922
2	Nigel Chapman	1774	0 - 1	Anthony Dunlop	1696
3	Thomas Grundy	1678	0 - 1	Lennart Koehn	1678
4	David Stewart	1614	½ - ½	Jim Robertson	1602
5	Richard Scott	1571	1 - 0	Tom Brisbane	1542
				1½ - 3½

Round One - second team beat SCDAD

Second team played SCDAD in 1st round and despite defaulting the bottom board won the match.

Nick West provides more details:

For a bit more info on 2 team matches.
We played the deaf association.
George drew, the rest of us won with one board conceded.
My game was a London system with opposite side castling where I had to interrupt my pawn storm to do some defend against my opponents advancing pawns and bishop pair creating some threats. Fortunately got my pawns moving again and won reasonably nicely in the end, promoting a pawn into a knight with check to nullify any counter play.

	CSBOS 2		CSBOS 2		SCDAD
1	Douglas S Heatlie	1563	1 - 0	Ian Carmichael	1581
2	Alistair Forbes	1506	1 - 0	Colin Simpson	1270
3	Nicholas C West	1374	1 - 0	Mark Towler	0
4	George C Anderson	1286	½ - ½	Graham Duff	929
5	DEFAULT	0	L - W	DEFAULT	0
				3½ - 1½

Round Two - second team lost to Stepps Warriors

In afternoon second team had a tough draw against team from Stepps.
Top 3 boards I believe were over 1900+ so a very tough match indeed.
Douglas, Gerry and Nick lost. George drew.
Looked like Alastair was doing great against Jim Doyle and when I saw it looked like he was at least level.
So a loss for the second team.

Nick writes:
The second match versus Stepps was crazy.
Top board over 2000, two 1900 and I was against an 1870 on board 4!
Handled the opening okay but quickly dropped a piece to some tactics and the guy then ground me down slowly with no possible counter play allowed.
Me and George got white again as Gerry turned up for the afternoon which helped.
George got a nice draw against another improving Junior (grade unknown maybe ungraded but clearly coached) with his rook holding versus a knight and two pawn to avoid a white wash.

Alastair did indeed do really well against his 1900+ opponent and basically had a won game but sadly walked into a tactic when very short on time to nullify his advantage and ended up losing on time shortly afterwards on move 29.

	Stepps Warriors		Stepps Warriors		CSBOS 2
1	Graeme A Nolan	2020	1 - 0	Douglas S Heatlie	1563
2	James Doyle	1906	1 - 0	Alistair Forbes	1506
3	Alex Gillies	1904	1 - 0	Gerry Brown	1486
4	William Hulme	1870	1 - 0	Nicholas C West	1374
5	Craig Gillies	1004	½ - ½	George C Anderson	1286
				4½ - ½

Thanks to all who played and hopefully everyone enjoyed it.

Click here for a list of news stories about this competition.