31 January 2018 - Central Allegro League

Grangemouth 10½ - 5½ Stirling Bruce
Round 1
Uby Archibong	1 - 0	Bill Cook
Dougie Will	1 - 0	Graham Anderson
Ian Mason	½ - ½	Dave Hewitt
Bill Gray	0 - 1	Brad Duthie
Round 2
Ubong Archibong	1 - 0	Graham Anderson
Dougie Will	1 - 0	Dave Hewitt
Ian Mason	1 - 0	Brad Duthie
Bill Gray	0 - 1	Bill Cook
Round 3
Ubong Archibong	1 - 0	Dave Hewitt
Dougie Will	1 - 0	Brad Duthie
Ian Mason	½ - ½	Bill Cook
Bill Gray	0 - 1	Graham Anderson
Round 4
Ubong Archibong	1 - 0	Brad Duthie
Dougie Will	1 - 0	Bill Cook
Ian Mason	0 - 1	Graham Anderson
Bill Gray	½ - ½	Dave Hewitt

29 January 2018 - Thornton Cup

Congratulations to Alex Scott, seen above on the left, who defeated Robert Togneri in the final of the Thornton Cup last night. This came hot on the heels of Alex's win in the under 1400 section of the Renfrew congress, with an impressive 3½/5. Well done Alex!

Alex being presented the trophy by Tom Wallace.

22 January 2018 - Central League Division 1

Stirling A v Badgers Brook A
Jim Shemilt   Steve Smith   Bill Cook   Graham Anderson   Tony Pitson	1767   1704   1663   1622   1469	0 - 1   0 - 1   0 - 1   ½ - ½   1 - 0	2054   1954   1562   1430   1175	Kenny McGeoch   Suzy Cooke   Graham Kerr   Dave McGilvray   Gordon Walker
		1½ - 3½

From my game on board 4 - Black to play and win.

White had just played 37 Kg3 which was unexpected - I'd thought 37 g3 was the move. I'd already decided to swap off on f4, and when the opportunity arose I didn't stop to consider any better options. There is a win here for Black with 37 ... a5. White doesn't really have any moves, and Black can force the swap-off at pretty much any time, so get the passed pawn up the board as quickly as possible.

15 January 2018 - Central League Division 2

Stirling B v Stirling C
John Blake Dave Hewitt Tony Pitson Craig Manson Brad Duthie	1574 1584 1469 1455 1428	0 - 1 1 - 0 1 - 0 0 - 1 1 - 0	e1500 1388 1386 1284 1273	Richard Warcup Alex Scott Tom Wallace Gordon Allcock Robert Togneri
		3 - 2

Thanks to John Blake for providing the game below, where he had White against Richard Warcup.

Blake - Warcup

Thanks to Dave Hewitt for providing the game and analysis below, where he had White against Alex Scott.

Hewitt - Scott

8 January 2018 - Blitz

Well done to Gordon Allcock, winner of the opening night Blitz!

Time control: 3 minutes + 2 second increment each for all moves

	Name	Rd 1	Rd 2	Rd 3	Rd 4	Rd 5	Rd 6	Rd 7	Place
1	Bill Cook	1 B 9	2 W 5	2 B 2	2 W 11	2½ B 4	3½ W 3	4½ B 13	=3
2	Graham Anderson	1 B 10	2 B 7	3 W 1	3 B 6	3 W 13	4 B 8	4½ W 5	=3
3	Steve Smith	1B 11	1W 6	1½B 4	2½ W 15	3 W 8	3 B 1	4 W 7	=6
4	Dave Hewitt	1 W 12	1½ B 8	2 W 3	2 B 13	2½ W 1	3½ B 15	3½ W 6	=8
5	Alex Scott	1 W 13	1 B 1	2 W 12	2 B 8	3 W 7	4 W 11	4½ B 2	=3
6	Gordon Allcock	1 W 14	2 B 3	2½ W 8	3½ W 2	4½ B 11	4½ W 13	5½ B 4	1
7	Alex Brimlow	1 B 15	1 W 2	1 B 11	2 W 10	2 B 5	3 W 9	3 B 3	=10
8	Robert Togneri	1 B 16	1½ W 4	2 B 6	3 W 5	3½ B 3	3½ W 2	3½ W 12	=8
9	Craig Thomson	0 W 1	0 B 13	0 B 15	1 *	2 W 12	2 B 7	3 W 11	=10
10	Idris Benwell	0 B 2	1 W 15	1 B 13	1 B 7	2 W 14	2 B 12	3 *	=10
11	Ross Warcup	0 W 3	1 B 14	2 W 7	3 B 1	3 W 6	3 B 5	3 B 9	=10
12	Martin Pringle	0 B 4	1 W 16	1 B 5	2 W 14	2 B 9	3 W 10	4 B 8	=6
13	Richard Warcup	0 B 5	1 W 9	2 W 10	3 W 4	4 B 2	5 B 6	5 W 1	2
14	Gordon Bowie	0 B 6	0 W 11	0 W 16	0 B 12	0 B 10	1 *	1 W 15	=15
15	Douglas Pringle	0 W 7	0 B 10	1 W 9	1 B 3	2 *	2 W 4	3 B 14	=10
16	Clive Wright	0 W 8	0 B 12	1 B 14	-	-	-	-	=15

18 December 2017 - Keddie Cup

Dave Hewitt writes:-

The 2017 Keddie Cup was another good one, with what could well have been a record entry of 29 (the previous highest I know of was 27 in 2008) and some very lively and hard-fought chess as usual. Congratulations go to Alex Brimlow, who had the lowest non-estimated grade of anyone in the room (377) and who beat his best pal Idris Benwell (394) in an entertaining final. Alex built up a good position early on (after making a rectified illegal move which gave Idris an extra minute on his clock), then missed a mate in two after which which Idris found two excellent defensive Q moves to keep the game very much alive. He went wrong again however and this time Alex did manage to spot a mate - an attractive mid-board one, which he missed on the first opportunity but then found to give the game and the tournament a nice conclusion. Alex thus becomes the third consecutive Keddie winner from the ranks of the low-graded juniors, after Carl Zihan Kang (803) last year and Sam Cook (488) in 2015, following a run of three wins by adults from the higher grades. It was the first junior vs junior final since the period when the Blake boys dominated the Keddie.

For the preliminary stage this year we switched from the traditional model of four groups to five, and this felt like it went very well. In future years, five groups is likely to be the norm for any Keddie with more than 24 players, as five rounds per group feels very manageable and we were into the mid-session raffle-and-food break by just after 9pm last night. The potential complication with five groups - that only the best three runners-up go through to join the group winners - didn't prove to be a problem. Alex S was the best runner-up, and was joined by Crawford (who was in the only group of five so had his score of 3/4 converted to 3.75/5) and Richard. The unlucky runners-up who didn't make it through were Martin Pringle and Craig Manson, who each scored 3/5. Ken Stewart was particularly unfortunate in that he scored 3.5/5 but still only managed to finish third in his group, behind the two Alexes (if that's the correct plural form of Alex).

No one had a 100% score on the night, as Ken took a draw off Alex B in the group. Idris and Gordon each scored 5/5 in the groups, but of course both lost a KO game later. Bill Gray and Mick Bloor contrived to lose all their games, but hopefully weren't too dismayed by this and will return in hope of doing better next year. For once there were no drawn games in the KO phase (hence the Keddie's first Armageddon game will need to await another year), while the only ties requiring to be broken in the groups came with Steve finishing level with Crawford in group E but winning the group courtesy of his victory in their actual game, and Craig Manson similarly finishing ahead of Maria Ash on head-to-head result in group C, although this still wasn't enough to see him through to the quarter-finals.

It was nice to meet the newcomer Ashley Clayton from the university club - making your first appearance at the club on Keddie night must be quite daunting, but he finished with a respectable 1.5/5 in group D. Overall, I reckon there were nine people making their Keddie debut - good to see. (Alex S wasn't sure if he'd played before, but he got to the quarter-finals in 2008.) It was good to see friends from the Grangemouth, Stirling University and Glasgow Polytechnic clubs, and it was especially good to see John and Jonathan Blake back in Keddie action after a break.

Graham Anderson v Alex Scott in the quarter final

Crawford Welsh v Alex Brimlow in the quarter final

Steve Smith v Idris Benwell in the quarter final

Richard Warcup v Gordon Allcock in the quarter final

The semi-finals start!

Alex and Idris start the final.

Alex with the trophy - well done Alex!

13 December 2017 - Central League Division 2

Grangemouth B v Stirling C
Ian Mason David Fowler Alaisdair Sandham David Sandham Nicholas Whitton	1601 1095 978 820	1 - 0 0 - 1 ½ - ½ 0 - 1 0 - 1	1388 1386 1284 1273 1107	Alex Scott Tom Wallace Gordon Allcock Robert Togneri Mick Bloor
		1½ - 3½