16 March 2015 - Central League Division 2 - Stirling B are champions!

Dunfermline B v Stirling B
Stuart Black Stewart Brisbane Douglas Rew Bryan O'Rourke Peter Horne	1570 1549 1537 1487 1382	½ - ½ ½ - ½ 0 - 1 ½ - ½ 0 - 1	1573 1556 1536 1442 1440	John Blake Bill Cook Tony Pitson Dave Hewitt Martyn Roe
		1½ - 3½

With 6 wins from their 6 league matches, Stirling B have won Division 2. Well played all who contributed!

Dave Hewitt writes:-
This was an unusually well-matched affair in terms of both gradings (especially on the top three boards) and styles, with the quieter and more solid players facing each other, ditto the more cavalier ones. Both teams were at full strength, ideal given that it was effectively a league decider (although had Dunfermline won they would still have had to beat Grangemouth B to take the division 2 title on game points).

After about 90 minutes it didn't look brilliant for us - a drawn match looked possible but a win was starting to seem unlikely. The top three boards seemed pretty level - a slight edge for us on board 2 where Bill was a pawn up in an open position, and drawish-looking in closed positions on boards 1 and 3, although Tony looked to be a bit cramped and perhaps slightly worse. Martyn appeared to be winning courtesy of a big kingside attack on board 5, but I was in a semi-mess against Bryan and had work to do to avoid losing.

We'd ended up in quite a quiet position for once (Bryan had evidently been expecting the usual hairy stuff, as he said "Gosh, what's that?" when I opened 1 d4 instead of 1 b4), and he won my a-pawn and built steady pressure. I was generating some counterplay down the e- and f-files courtesy of having pushed some pawns, but Bryan should probably have won from here. John and Bill then agreed draws in quick succession, so with Martyn now clearly winning I began to think about offering a draw in my game. I waited until Martyn made the time control (which he did with something like 15 seconds to spare), then offered - but Bryan rightly declined.

Tony's position then deteriorated, and he was two pawns down (six vs four, I think) in a R ending and clearly losing. By contrast, my situation improved markedly, as Bryan became worried about the pawn pressure and went defensive, allowing me to grab the only open file with my R. His N was also awkwardly placed and later analysis showed that I could have trapped it around this same stage - at the cost of a couple more pawns - but I was happy just to nab the a-file which at least equalised and gave me some reasonable winning chances. But it was sharp and risky, and when Martyn duly won I still wasn't completely confident that I could draw my game and thus clinch the league with a drawn match.

Suddenly, however, I didn't need to worry - there was a clatter of moves on the adjacent Douglas-Tony board, pieces being knocked over and both players visibly shaking. Despite having a straightforwardly won position Douglas had allowed one of Tony's remaining pawns to advance and had to give up his R to stop it. I didn't see exactly what happened, but now Tony had K+P against a bare K and a few moves later he had won. But even had the game ended in a draw the league would have been safe, so I was able to relax. I slightly lost the thread of my game (by now very sharp) in the general commotion, and from having a reasonably clear advantage I was probably only slightly better when I again offered a draw. With the match and league both gone, and with only two minutes on his clock against my four, Bryan thought for a few seconds, double-checked the match scoresheet, and accepted.

Thus ended an excellent, tense and hard-fought match played in good spirit. It was nice to win the division with a played six, won six record, and the individual scores have been good - eg John 5/6, Tony 4½/5, Martyn 3/3 and 4/5 for the various board 5 substitutes. (Robert Togneri's board 5 win against Mick in the first match - which feels like absolutely ages ago now - was, in retrospect, particularly important. As with Tony's win last night, it was a sudden turnaround from a lost position, so two such results - very typical of evening-league chess - bookended the season.) Stirling B won the last two matches of the previous season as well, so since the loss to our own C team in January 2014 we've won eight out of eight.

Individual scores: Blake 5/6, Cook 2½/5, Pitson 4½/5, Hewitt 3/6, Roe 3/3, Allcock 2/2, Togneri 1/1, Brodie 1/1, Bloor 0/1

Last night's match was the only one in which we were able to field all five nominees. Thanks to all the players who turned out for the B team this season - no one gets medals these days for winning the league, but everyone deserves one all the same.

The game below is from board 1, where John Blake had Black against Stuart Black.

Black - Blake