First team beat University 1
Crawford Macnab
4 March 2025
An unexpected 4 - 2 win against University 1 for the first team.
| University 1 | University 1 | Civil Service 1 | Civil Service 1 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Timofei Krassel | 2095 | 1 - 0 | Charles Gunn-Russell | 1751 | ||
| 2 | Jacob Watson | 1958 | 1 - 0 | Allan McDiarmid | 1750 | ||
| 3 | Oliver Lendvai | 1669 | 0 - 1 | Crawford T Macnab | 1696 | ||
| 4 | Andrew Rogers | 1613 | 0 - 1 | Richard Scott | 1657 | ||
| 5 | Ameen Mayajan | 0 - 1 | Nathaniel Forbes Inskip | 1645 | |||
| 6 | Fakhriyor Mansurov | 0 - 1 | Eric P Smith | 1589 | |||
| 2 - 4 | |||||||
Bit of a chaotic start to the match as University were scrambling to setup 12 sets for our match and their 2nd team against Gorgie Dalry. We had brought 5 chess sets, boards and clocks to help out and ensure there was enough equipment for the two matches. With the 6.45 start time passed and no sign of any Gorgie Dalry players it became clear they had not been informed of the new venue! Too late to do anything so this will be a 6-0 default for Gorgie Dalry.
Charles opponent arrived 10 minutes late and proceeded to blitz out his moves. The game appeared to be played very fast by both players and before long Charles was a queen down for insufficient material and the game was soon resigned.
Allan had a steady position against the English opening but in the middle game it looked like a minor piece on the wrong square allowed the advantage to swing to white on the open f file.
With the top two boards quickly losing and the other boards looking to mostly favour University, a 5-1 or 6-0 defeat looked possible!
On bottom board Eric appeared to be facing a very strong attack against his king but must have defended well as later he reached an endgame with a bishop against 3 or 4 pawns. Although white had three connected passed pawns on the kingside they were too far back to be a problem and the bishop easily mopped up the queenside pawns.
Richard had a bit of a cramped position with the black pieces and although he was a pawn up it looked like his opponent had more than enough activity for the pawn. When the game abruptly finished I assumed at best a draw was agreed but in fact Richard had won due to a piece blunder. Richard reckoned his opponent could have played on.
Back at 2-2 and looking much better!
On board 3 I played the Smith Morra Gambit where my opponent fell behind in development with the somewhat slow h6 and moving Nf6 to d7 to e5. With the black king not castled and all the whites pieces developed an e5 push was met with d5 which setup the classic Nxd5 sacrifice which had to be played. Black chose to decline the sacrifice but this left a horrible position where castling was not possible on either side. Both players ran short of time but fortunately I had more and a further sacrifice was just enough to win on time with only 6 seconds left!
On board 5 Nathaniel had a cramped position, was a pawn down and all his opponent’s pieces were better placed. Not looking good, Nathaniel battled on and his opponent misplayed the position and eventually an endgame with K+R+N and K+R+N with an extra pawn for Nathaniel was reached. With at least a draw ensured Nathaniel carefully played on and eventually won the rook and his opponent soon had to resign.
In the end a great result that ensures we can’t finish 2nd bottom!
With one match to go against Wandering Dragons we are in the mix at the top.