First Team Drew with Edinburgh 4

Crawford Macnab

21 December 2023

Fourth league match saw us face yet another Edinburgh team, this time number 4!

Ralph was first to finish where he lost with a Sicilian Defence. Whites pieces appeared to be more coordinated and had good central control with his rooks.

Charles game simplified with many exchanges down the open f file with a drew being agreed.

My game became blockaded in the centre with my pieces being less well organised than my opponents. Despite this a draw was offered by white which I accepted. At that point it looked like a good decision with the remianing games looking promising for us.

Allan was doing well with more space with the white pieces in a balanced position. Unfortunately his opponent spotted an exchange sacrifice of rook for bishop which in the end resulted in Allan being a bishop down.

Matt had another strong win with his London system. His g4 and h4 pawns pushing towards his opponents king with a nice attack threatening. He then made a decision to swap queens and switch to a winning rook, bishop and pawn ending where he went a pawn up with a dominating position.

On the bottom board, Richard reached a knight, bishop and pawns ending with the centre and kingside being blockaded. His opponent created a passed a pawn that looked threatening but he allowed Richard to surround and win this pawn. With both players short on time his opponent pushed forward with his king but this allowed Richard knight to get in behind and win more pawns.

An important win giving us a 3-3 draw!

	Edinburgh 4		Edinburgh 4		Civil Service 1		Civil Service 1
1	Snorri Kristjansson	1824	0 - 1	Matt Rounds	1825
2	Calum McGillivray	1630	½ - ½	Charles Gunn-Russell	1763
3	Berislav Marusic	1791	1 - 0	Allan McDiarmid	1751
4	Ian Whittaker	1584	½ - ½	Crawford Macnab	1716
5	David Montgomery	1575	0 - 1	Richard Scott	1692
6	Findlay Haddow	1550	1 - 0	Ralph Jackson	1651
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