Spens Cup - loss to Lenzie
Crawford Macnab
15 March 2025
A tough one against five strong juniors from Lenzie in the quarter-final of the Spens Cup.
Two of their players had previously played against us in the Jack Campbell Rosebowl back in March 2023. They have improved a fair bit since then!
| Lenzie | Lenzie | Civil Service | Civil Service | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kanishka Bhatia | 2018 | 1 - 0 | Crawford T Macnab | 1840 | ||
| 2 | Neev Lukhi | 1953 | 0 - 1 | Euan McDiarmid | 1830 | ||
| 3 | Tavish Railwani | 1771 | ½ - ½ | Douglas S Heatlie | 1829 | ||
| 4 | Chrysoula-Paraskevi Mitraka | 1776 | 1 - 0 | Eric P Smith | 1589 | ||
| 5 | Lochan Balaji | 1095 | 1 - 0 | William L Lindved | 1563 | ||
| 3½ - 1½ | |||||||
I was first to finish on top board after making a mess of the opening, and there was no recovery when playing a candidate master!
Euan had an interesting endgame with two knights and strong passed pawns against a rook. Sacrificing one of the knights while advancing the pawns forced an eventual resignation.
Douglas looked to be in trouble facing a passed pawn on the seventh rank that was threatening to be queened, he managed to sacrifice a rook and bishop that lead to a draw with repeated moves.
Eric appeared to be in control winning the g7 pawn and ready to take the h pawn to go a pawn ahead. Instead he chose a tactic that won the queen for a rook and bishop, but when the smoke had cleared the remaining bishop and two rooks supported a pawn push to d3 and threats against the exposed king. Material had to be given back leading to a rook against some extra passed pawns that could not be held.
William was doing fine in a slow game but after some pawn cover was lost in front of his king this proved to be fatal with an eventual mating attack.
Boards 2 and 3
Boards 4 and 5
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