2026-01-12 The return match between the C and D teams

  Central League Division 2 Match
 
  Stirling C             4-1  Stirling D 

1 Nathanael Loch   1515  1-0  Douglas Heatlie  1563
2 Kenny MacPherson 1506  1-0  Harry Feather    1461
3 Toby Geyer       1302  1-0  Sandy Carmichael 1357
4 Mick Bloor       1084  1-0  David Fowler     1300  
5 Josh Heesom      u/g   0-1  Victor Liu       928

The Sirling D team had White on Boards 2, 4 and 5

C Team captain Nathanael provided this report:

All five games were quite aggressive all around. The only pairing I did not witness was Josh vs Victor, but Victor came out with a quick win (less 30 minutes if I recall correctly), so I presume some sort of opening trap led to Victor-y (pun intended).

Board 4 featured a level game for a long time, until eventually David pressed for a mating attack which ultimately failed to manifest. In doing so, about 2 pawns fell and the endgame was ultimately lost in R vs R.

Board 3 is one I didn't see the beginning of, but during the middlegame, Toby somehow ended up with 2 extra pieces, but things were not so cut and dry. Sandy held the game until the very end as losing at that point would have meant a guaranteed win for Stirling C. The two rooks kept chances in the air, but the material proved too strong even after Toby sacced a bishop back, winning RRN vs RR.

Board 2 seemed very level to me until at one point a sequence led to Kenny having two bishops for a rook (with pawn interest), and due to both bishops looking at the castled king protected by only an f-pawn remaining, the bishops proved stronger than the rooks, leading to a situation where Harry would have to lose a piece by force after trading queens; hence the endgame was too dire to play out to the end.

Board 1 was tense the whole way. Douglas traded his knight for my bishop (g3) which opened my h-file on move 11. The result was a constant attack on the castled king (kingside) until eventually I was able to sacrifice a knight to break through with the pieces. Not quite a true sacrifice as taking would lead to Qh7# supported by the rook on h1. The engine showed White was for choice the whole attack, but Douglas did have one move to get a -0.2 evaluation from Stockfish. Unfortunately, this was not found in the game.