First team back to winning ways

Crawford Macnab

23 January 2023

Our first match in the 2nd half of the league season was a visit to Alva Street to play against Edinburgh 3.

Both teams were closely matched on grading with everything to play for.

Charles had a minature against Chris McIntee with his opponent resigning after just 13 moves. This looked a little premature though Black would have a winning material advantage with little compensation for white.

Chris, McIntee

Gunn-Russell, Charles

0-1

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Bc5 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. Ne5 Ne5 5. d4 Bd6 6. de5 Be5 7. Bd3 Nf6 8. O-O d6 9. f4

 

Possibly white needed to finish development first before pushing f4. Black squares become weak.

 

9... Bd4 10. Kh1 O-O 11. Ne2 Bb6 12. Ng3 Ng4 13. Qe1 Nh2

 

[13... Nh2 Could have carried on though black on back foot now 14. f5 Nf1 15. Nf1 Re8]

Allan had a solid draw in a caro-kann.

Matt had an interesting game against Lindsay McGregor on the black side of an accelerated dragon. Instead of taking back the white queen on b6, Matt chose to sacrifice with Rfc8 which led to him having two rooks and a bishop against the white queen. This proved more than enough to secure the win.

I had a bit of pressure / space in a Macrozy Bind position but allowed exchanges leading to an agreed draw.

Nathaniel had a nice position and looked to be converting this to a winning endgame. Time pressure did not help and in the end a drawn king and pawn ending was reached.

Richard was again last to finish and had developed a strong attacking position. Unfortunately he failed to find the killer move and with less than a minute on the clock a draw was agreed.