First team beat Edinburgh 4
Crawford Macnab
6 February 2025
A narrow 3½ - 2½ win over Edinburgh 4 for the first team.
| Edinburgh 4 | Edinburgh 4 | Civil Service 1 | Civil Service 1 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Calum McGillivray | 1717 | 0 - 1 | Matt Rounds | 1876 | ||
| 2 | John S R Smith | 1712 | 1 - 0 | Allan McDiarmid | 1750 | ||
| 3 | Matthew Willder | 1635 | ½ - ½ | Crawford T Macnab | 1696 | ||
| 4 | Ian P Whittaker | 1611 | 0 - 1 | Euan McDiarmid | 1659 | ||
| 5 | David C Montgomery | 1557 | 0 - 1 | Richard Scott | 1657 | ||
| 6 | Vipin Zamvar | 1510 | 1 - 0 | Ralph Jackson | 1551 | ||
| 2½ - 3½ | |||||||
Matt was first to finish with a quick win over Calum McGillivray. White had a simple plan to win blacks isolated d pawn with the major pieces, bringing the queen to d3 to support the doubled rooks left black struggling to defend this pawn. Unfortunately black failed to notice Qd3 as well as attacking the d pawn was also attacking the undefended rook on b5. With this being missed black was forced to resign.
Richard had an isolated pawn on e3 to defend though as compensation after Rf3 and an open f file had attacking possibilities. Did not see the conclusion but a second win moved us to 2-0.
Ralph was next to finish on board 6, unfortunately losing to Vipin Zamvar.
Euan had another excellent win on board 4 with the black pieces which ensured us at least a draw with the score at 3-1.
On board three I was playing against a junior who rattled off the opening moves of his Petroff Defence very quickly. With both sides having castled queenside it was black that found it easier to organise his pieces to threaten the white king. I took a lot of time to ponder over a suitable defence which in the end turned out to be adequate when I forced the queens off. Reached the time control having won a few pawns. In the quickplay finish although I had a winning advantage I had to take a repeat of moves to avoid running out of time. However the draw was enough to secure the match!
On board two Allan looked to be doing ok but a bishop fork of king and rook allowed his opponent to get a bishop against two pawns advantage. With no option to create complications the endgame was lost.
An important 3½ - 2½ win against the team currently at the bottom of the league.