First team lost to Edinburgh 3

Crawford Macnab

18 November 2024

A close match against Edinburgh 3 with both teams well matched on gradings.

We lost this 4 - 2 in the end.

	Edinburgh 3		Edinburgh 3		Civil Service 1
1	Ivar Bundulis	1723	1 - 0	Matt Rounds	1876
2	Mark Gyalus	1730	½ - ½	Charles Gunn-Russell	1751
3	Christopher McIntee	1693	1 - 0	Allan McDiarmid	1750
4	Martin Brejter	1690	½ - ½	Euan McDiarmid	1659
5	Lindsay A McGregor	1678	0 - 1	Richard Scott	1657
6	Colin J Hutchison	1662	1 - 0	Nathaniel Forbes Inskip	1645
				4 - 2

As I was not playing I got to watch how the games unfolded!

Matt built up a great attacking position with rooks on g1 and h1 lined up against the black king. With many choices on how to pursue the attack, Matt went astray with his opponent defending well. Where a switch away from full attack mode was needed that would have given equality or a slight edge, Matt over stretched and lost. (Special shout out to Matt who interrupted his break in the Cairngorms to come down for the match and driving back up afterwards!)

Nathaniel found himself on the black side of a main stream opening where a pawn was dropped early on. Unfortunately there was no compensation and it proved too difficult to hold.

Richard was playing the ever tricky Lindsay McGregor who despite dropping a minor piece created plenty of play. Having carefully navigated through this to go a rook up, Richard lost a bishop that gave a glimmer of hope to his opponent. Thankfully the position was still winning and Richard made no further mistake giving a back rank checkmate to finish.

Euan had a reasonable position on the black side of a French Advance but went a pawn down when an exposed pawn was lost after many of the major pieces were swapped off. Despite this he managed to create a passed rook pawn with his opponent having a protected passed pawn on c5. Soon the pawns were advanced so that there was no way for the white king to break through so a draw was agreed.

Allan had a tough time of it but battled on to reach a position where he blockaded his opponents advanced pawn that was protected by his bishop. Potentially drawing chances but his opponent exchanged his rook for Allan’s bishop and some pawns with the pawns being too difficult to be stopped.

Charles was last to finish and had at least equalised out of the opening with the black pieces. He moved his bishop to e4 that allowed a long sequence of exchanges that resulted in going a pawn down. With only a pawn down and knight versus bishop there was always a chance of a drawn and Charles defended well. His efforts were rewarded when white pushed his pawn to g5 which ended any chance of using the extra pawn for a break through.