First team lost to Edinburgh West 1

Crawford Macnab

21 January 2026

After a drawn match in the first fixture in October we were hoping to have another good performance. Finished with a narrow 3½ - 2½ loss.

Richard was first to finish and looked to have blundered.

Marcel got his revenge on board one with a strong king side attack while his opponent had been focussing initially on the queen side.

Charles had a solid draw on board two against a 2166 opponent.

Did not see Allan’s game finishing but he did well to untangle from a cramped position around his king.

In my game with hindsight I should have sat back and done nothing forcing my stronger opponent to initiate a breakthrough. Instead pushing pawns to open up position made it more tricky to defend some weaknesses.

This left Eric with the challenge of defending a theoretically lost K+R+P v K+R ending. In mutual time trouble there was always the chance of a mistake being made but the game was finally lost as the pawn promoted.

A good effort by the team that was very close to getting a result against one of the strong teams.