Friendly Match - lost to Wandering Dragons

Crawford Macnab

21 February 2022

We welcomed a team from Wandering Dragons for a graded friendly match played over 5 boards.

The Dragons put out a strong team, but we battled well and narrowly lost 2 - 3.

Allan was first to finish with a win against Donald Heron with the black pieces. It looked like he had dropped (or gambited?!) a pawn in the opening but had some chances with active pieces and a backward pawn on d3 to chase. White miscoordinated his pieces and allowed a tactic that lost his initiative. At this point white resigned but it looked like this might have been premature as material was close to equal with only a slight edge to black.

Euan had a more cramped position with the white pieces against Jim O’Neil and unfortunately blundered by placing his queen on the only available retreat square for his knight.

Charles had a solid draw with the white pieces against Elliot Sloan. Material was equal and although black had a passed rook pawn this was blockaded, with white having control of the open b file.

Sandy finished with a draw in the end. Although he was material ahead his opponent had some passed pawns as compensation.

I was last to finish losing to Mark Orr. Fell behind on the clock as it was proving difficult to defend correctly against multiple threats. In time trouble I blundered and position collapsed.

Thanks to Wandering Dragons for giving us a tough match!

	Civil Service		Civil Service		Wandering Dragons		Wandering Dragons
1	Crawford T Macnab	1811	0 - 1	Mark J L Orr (IM)	2116
2	Charles Gunn-Russell	1797	½ - ½	Elliot S Sloan	1900
3	Allan McDiarmid	1740	1 - 0	Donald Heron	1841
4	Euan McDiarmid		0 - 1	Jim O'Neil	1832
5	Sandy Powell	1108	½ - ½	Chris Moore
				2 - 3