Club Autumn Lightning

Crawford Macnab

5 January 2026

The Autumn Allegro (New Year Allegro!) had a very good turn out of twenty players, with new members Ruaridh, Andre, Sam Kis and Beijin playing for the first time.

Two qualifying sections were played over 7 rounds with Richard Scott and Euan McDiarmid winning their respective sections.

In the first section, as Patrick had not arrived at the start a decision was taken to give him the bye in the first round. Unfortunately Patrick didn’t make it (totally forgot!) which meant that in later rounds some players had to be paired against each other for a second time. This was limited to Crawford v Nick and Euan v Ruaridh. Euan won all his games apart from a loss to Douglas.

In the second section, Richard finished first, narrowly ahead of Isaac who was in clear second place. There was a dispute in the final game between Isaac and Gerry over an illegal move. It was not clear how best to resolve this at the time so both players agreed to replay the game which Gerry won. (Clarification of rules required ahead of next lightning)

In the play off between Euan and Richard, Euan got a slight edge and made no mistake converting this to a win.

Congratulations to Euan on retaining his Autumn Allegro Trophy which he has now won 3 times.

Section One

• 1: Euan McDiarmid (6/7)
• 2-3: Crawford Macnab, Douglas Heatlie (5/7)
• 4: Stuart McKinney (4/7)
• 5-7: Ruaridh Neave, Andre Mair, Allan McDiarmid (3/7)
• 8-10: Nick West, Sandy Powell, Joe Harvey (2/7)

Section Two

• 1: Richard Scott (5½/7)
• 2: Isaac Boyd (5/7)
• 3-4: Emma Scott, Gerry Brown (4½/7)
• 5-6: Sam Clucas, Beijin Shen (4/7)
• 7: Charles Gunn-Russell (3½/7)
• 8-9: Mathew Boyd, Sam Kis (2/7)
• 10: Eric Smith (0/7)