Brian Wurr Memorial Match

Crawford Macnab
28 March 2022

We visited Corstorphine for a 2nd Brian Wurr memorial friendly match played over 10 boards.

All games were closely contested and in the end we finished with a convincing victory by 7½ to 2½.

Charles went a pawn down with the black pieces but had some compensation that allowed simplification into a drawn ending. Draw agreed.

Allan always had a slight edge in a major piece middle game and when all the major pieces came off, a pawn up ending was decisive.

Euan reached a blockaded French Defence position where neither side could safely make progress without significant risk. A draw being a fair result.

Matt patiently pushed forward with his extra pawn proving decisive in the end.

Eric narrowly won in an endgame with two bishops and pawns against rook and pawns.

Douglas had an active queen against two rooks where his opponent had an exposed uncastled king and undeveloped bishop and rook. Win for Douglas.

Gerry had a good space advantage and better coordinated pieces.

From what I recall, Simeon went the exchange up but his opponent defended well and it took a while to break through.

Sandy was mostly level for most of the game but lost in the end.

On board one I had some initiative against the black king that was a bit exposed having moved pawns forward to g6, f6 and e6. With white about to force though on the black squares, black creatively gave up a pawn to allow his queen to retreat and help parry the attack. In quick play finish I took the safe option and exchanged queens but with opposite coloured bishops the extra pawn was insufficient. Keeping queens on was riskier but may have given some chances for the win though white looked to have defensive resources and possible perpetual.

Thanks to Corstorphine for hosting the match. Apparently Corstorphine are looking for a new venue as the Corstorphine community hub and all the buildings in the block are due to be demolised ahead of a new build!

Corstorphine Corstorphine Civil Service Civil Service
1
Chris Sykes
1791 ½ - ½
Crawford T Macnab
1811
2
Alistair K J MacNaughton
1705 ½ - ½
Charles Gunn-Russell
1797
3
Brian Gourlay
1583 0 - 1
Allan McDiarmid
1740
4
Graham Wilson
1509 0 - 1
Matt Rounds
1736
5
Palanivel Somasundaram
1504 0 - 1
Eric P Smith
1621
6
David Burns
1480 ½ - ½
Euan McDiarmid
7
David Ainsworth
1354 0 - 1
Gerry Brown
1435
8
Krishan Paterson
0 - 1
Douglas Heatlie
1418
9
Morvin Gera
1270 0 - 1
Simeon Tsvetkov
10
Michael Anderson
1234 1 - 0
Sandy Powell
1108
2½ - 7½
Brian Wurr Memorial Trophy

Brian Wurr Memorial Trophy

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