27 January 2014 - Central League Division 2

Dunfermline C v Stirling C
Bryan O'Rourke Peter Horne T Russell Derek Rodger Ben Volland	1474 1342   1239 1090	½ - ½ 1 - 0 1 - 0 0 - 1 ½ - ½	1458 1323 1318 1245 1207	Martyn Roe Mick Bloor Craig Manson Robert Togneri David Brodie
		3 - 2

27 January 2014 - Central League Division 1

Stirling A v Dunfermline A
Steve Smith   Graham Anderson   Robin Hayles   Neil Irving   Tony Pitson	1750   1670   1660   1657   1520	0 - 1   ½ - ½   ½ - ½   1 - 0   1 - 0	2149   1740   1607   1569   1321	Ian Robertson   Iain Sneddon   Stuart Black   Douglas Rew   George Webb
		3 - 2

20 January 2014 - Club Allegro

Dave Hewitt writes: Congratulations to Steve for winning the club allegro last Monday - his sixth win or joint-win in the 17 events held thus far (since 2005), which takes him two clear of the next most frequent winner (Graham). By the end of r3 this edition was a shakeup between Steve, Graham and me in terms of who was going to win it. I was clear leader after r3 but was then well beaten by Steve, who held his nerve to win a tricky ending against Robert L in r5 was I was squeezing past Graham to finish second.

As ever there was an entertaining mix of tight margins and sudden turnarounds. Robert L - who surely did better than anyone in relative grading terms - scored 2½/5 but also came very close to getting draws in his games against Graham and Steve (and possibly a win against Graham - a pawn on h7 just needed to be pushed one more square and the result would have been different). The final-round game against Steve was possibly the tightest of the lot - it was heading for a technical drawn ending as the clocks ticked down, but when Steve had just 25 secs left Robert moved into a check and the resulting two-minute bonus gave Steve enough time to work out how to win.

Steve also had a close shave in r3 against Gordon - with very little time left he was just one move away from mate but forgot to press his clock. Gordon very sportingly pointed this out to him. My own r3 game was also exciting and included probably the biggest swindle of the night - I was losing in about 20 different ways to Neil and close to resigning before he played something odd and allowed a two-move mate that I certainly didn't deserve.

Overall there were 12 players, and everyone won at least one game - always good to see. The next club allegro will probably be on Mon 28 April, although as ever with late-season stuff there might be a bit of date-juggling to accommodate postponed matches etc.

Time control: 15 minutes each for all moves

	Name	Grade	Rd 1	Rd 2	Rd 3	Rd 4	Rd 5	Place
1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12	Bill Cook   Graham Anderson   Neil Irving   Tony Pitson   Steve Smith   Dave Hewitt   Gordon Allcock   Robert Togneri   David Brodie   Robert Leckie   Mick Bloor   Craig Manson	1684   1593   1588   1581   1575   1502   1406   1278   1276   1224   1130   1071	1 W 7   1 B 8   1 W 9   ½ B 10   1 W 11   1 B 12   0 B 1   0 W 2   0 B 3   ½ W 4   0 B 5   0 W 6	1 B 6   1½ W 5   2 B 4   ½ W 3   1½ B 2   2 W 1   1 W 12   0 B 11   0 W 10   1½ B 9   1 W 8   0 B 7	2 W 11   2½ B 10   2 W 6   1 B 8   2½ W 7   3 B 3   1 B 5   ½ W 4   0 B 12   1½ W 2   1 B 1   1 W 9	2 B 2   3½ W 1   2 B 10   2 W 12   3½ B 6   3 W 5   1 W 11   ½ B 9   1 W 8   2½ W 3   2 B 7   1 B 4	3 W 4   3½ B 6   3 B 11   2 B 1   4½ W 10   4 W 2   1 B 9   1½ W 12   2 W 7   2½ B 5   2 W 3   1 B 8	=4   3   =4   =7   1   2   11   10   =7   6   =7   12

13 January 2014 - Central League Division 2

Stirling C v Stirling B
Martyn Roe Gordon Allcock Craig Manson Mick Bloor David Brodie	1458 1383 1318 1323 1207	½ - ½ 1 - 0 0 - 1 1 - 0 1 - 0	1810 1616 1559 1520 1518	Jim Shemilt Bill Cook John Blake Tony Pitson Dave Hewitt
		3½ - 1½

Dave Hewitt writes:- Tremendous win on Monday for Stirling C vs Stirling B - especially as C were the home team and thus only had two whites (on boards 2 and 4). They almost pulled off a shock in the reverse fixture in September, and this time - despite being outgraded by an average of 266 points per board - took their chances when an out-of-sorts B team provided them.

The first game to finish was on board 4, where Tony was two pieces up but allowed Mick to conjure a mate. John quickly levelled things with a win against Craig (John's the only B-teamer who has been in steady form this season, winning all four of his games) before Gordon beat Bill on board 2 to put the Cs ahead again. This left Jim and me both needing to win in order for the Bs to snatch the match, but by this stage we were both worse - Jim was an exchange down against Martyn in what looked to be the game of the night, while I'd messed up a reasonable middlegame position (not for the first time this season) and had no realistic hope of anything better than a draw, and even that looked unlikely with David well on top by now and playing good chess. The Jim-Martyn game ended in a draw by repetition, so I now needed to win from a lost position in order to draw the match (again not for the first time this season). But it was more a case of the captain going down with the ship and I resigned when David acquired his second Q. Not the best of nights for the Bs, but a well-deserved win for the Cs, who thus broke their duck in terms of league points this season.

Hewitt - Brodie

6 January 2014 - Central Allegro League

Badgers Brook 9 - 7 Stirling Wallace

I don't have round-by-round scores for this, but Steve Smith scored 3/4 with two wins and two draws, Robin Hayles and Jim Shemilt both scored 2/4, and Mick lost all of his games.