First Team Lost to Pentland Hills 1

Crawford Macnab
6 November 2023

First league match proved to be a tough one!

Matt faced a Maroczy Bind structure against his accelerated Sicilian Dragon. White appeared to have a solid position and pushed on with g4. Did not see the conclusion but white eventually had an extra pawn.

Charles game appeared to be level all the way against a Queens Indian formation and in the end a solid draw was agreed.

I wasted too much time pondering how to defend against a threatened fork of my rooks on c7. It turns out the threat was not as strong as I thought and as queens came off I had chances in the time scramble. Further behind on the clock I missed my opportunity to retreat my knight to fork his two rooks. This proved costly as I soon lost on time.

Richard faced an early Bg4/c5 against his London System with Black delaying getting his king to safety. Richard possibly missed an opportunity to further hamper black’s development and before long black had got his delayed pieces out. Mutual exchanges with an agreed draw in the end.

Ralph appeared to have some challenges completing his development in a Sicilian although his opponent had left his king in the centre whilst playing plenty of queen moves.

Euan finished relatively early and spent time reviewing the game with his opponent. His opponent Marc Gamble recently won the Peter Elders trophy for the most improved adult in the Edinburgh and Lothians area. I heard in passing that Euan may have missed the chance to win with a greek sacrifice?!

Civil Service 1 Civil Service 1 Pentland Hills 1 Pentland Hills 1
1
Matt Rounds
1825 0 - 1
Philip Best
1894
2
Charles Gunn-Russell
1763 ½ - ½
Ian Morrison
1811
3
Crawford Macnab
1716 0 - 1
David Begg
1680
4
Richard Scott
1692 ½ - ½
Chris Donkin
1676
5
Ralph Jackson
1651 ½ - ½
Victor Thimonier
1563
6
Euan McDiarmid
1616 ½ - ½
Marc Gamble
1323
2 - 4