20 April 2016 - Central League Division 2

Grangemouth B v Stirling C
Bill Gray Crawford Welsh David Fowler Scott Dickson Scott McKenzie	1460 1350 862	1 - 0 1 - 0 0 - 1 1 - 0 1 - 0	1301 1245	David Brodie Robert Togneri Michael Cook James Warwick Sam Cook
		4 - 1

18 April 2016 - Central League Division 2

Dunfermline B v Stirling B
Stewart Brisbane Douglas Rew Calum Smith Bryan O'Rourke Peter Horne	1530 1521 1529 1359 1357	0 - 1 ½ - ½ 1 - 0 0 - 1 1 - 0	1583 1562 1486 1460 1458	John Blake Tony Pitson Dave Hewitt Gordon Allcock Martyn Roe
		2½ - 2½

Dave Hewitt writes:- Congraulations to Dunfermline B, who drew with Stirling B on Monday evening and thus won division 2 - the two teams are both on 16 match points but Dunfermline have one more game point (and still have a match to play, against Grangemouth B next week). It was a hard-fought match, in which Stirling went two-up courtesy of a fine win by Gordon against Bryan and then a win by the back-in-form John against Stewart.

The other boards weren't looking so good for Stirling, however - I'd dropped an exchange in the opening against Calum and was trying and failing to drum up counterplay, Tony had an edge against Douglas but it looked fairly drawish, while Martyn - making a rare appearance for Stirling - was a piece down but had strong central pawns against Peter.

Tony and Douglas eventually drew, and Martyn now seemed to be close to winning but had next to no time left - he was looking for perpetuals but nothing appeared and in due course his flag fell. That just left me trying to fight my lost cause, but Calum's technique was solid and he eventually reduced it to a trivial pawn ending with 90 seconds left, whereupon I gave up.

Thanks to John Blake for provding the game and analysis below, where John had White against Stewart Brisbane.

Blake - Brisbane

11 April 2016 - Central Allegro League

The final fixtures of the Allegro League were played on Monday night. Dunfermline Minnows met Grangemouth Tigers, in a match which would decide the destination of the trophy, and Stirling Wallace met Dunfermline Sharks. Wallace, with a team of Steve Smith, Jim Shemilt, Gordon Allcock and David Brodie defeated the Sharks 8½-7½ for their first victory of the season.

Minnows defeated Tigers 11-5, which sees Minnows claim the title by a half board point from Stirling Bruce. Congratulations to the Minnows! The final league table is below.

	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Game Points	Match Points
Dunfermline Minnows   Stirling Bruce   Grangemouth Tigers   Stirling Wallace   Dunfermline Sharks	4   4   4   4   4	3   3   3   1   0	0   0   0   0   0	1   1   1   3   4	38   37½   36   23½   25	6   6   6   2   0

6 April 2016 - Central League Cup

Knowing that Grangemouth would be at pretty much full strength, and missing our top board Shivan, it seemed before the game that Stirling's best hope of victory lay in hoping that the janny wouldn't turn up.

Grangemouth v Stirling
Uby Archibong   Alan Bell   Graham Hamilton   Dougie Will   John Smith   Ian Mason   Bill Gray	2224   1956   1944   1946   1737   1719   1460	0 - 1   ½ - ½   ½ - ½   1 - 0   0 - 1   1 - 0   1 - 0	1778   1702   1671   1666   1583   1562   1486	Jim Shemilt   Steve Smith   Graham Anderson   Bill Cook   John Blake   Tony Pitson   Dave Hewitt
		4 - 3

As it turned out, it was a very close match, and had it been a league match Stirling would have won. I think John finished first, winning against John Smith. This was followed by two wins for Grangemouth on the bottom two boards, putting the score at 2-1. Steve and I agreed draws at pretty much the same time, after which Bill lost to Dougie. This gave Grangemouth the victory, before all attention turned to the game on board 1. Jim got two passed pawns to the 7th and 6th, before Queening one, and, after checking that Jim had enough to mate him, Uby resigned. Grangemouth go on to play Badgers Brook in the final.

The game below is from board 3, where I had White against Graham Hamilton.

Anderson - Hamilton

The game blow is from board 5, where John Blake had White against John Smith.

Blake - Smith