2026-01-19 Three Teams, Two Matches

The third Monday of the New Year brought forward a double-header. The Stirling A and B Teams faced each other, while the E team hosted Grangemouth C.

   Central League Division 1

   Stirling B            1-4  Stirling A 

1. Richard Warcup  1637  0-1  Isaac Browning  2054
2. Brad Duthie     1552  1-0  John Iwuozor    2020 (Default)
3. Bill Cook       1544  0-1  Leo Gardner     1896
4. Douglas Heatlie 1563  0-1  Sean Flanagan   1698
5. Kelechi Nwosu    u/g  0-1  Nathanael Loch  1515

Stirling B were the 'home' team.
The Bs had White on Boards 1 and 2.

Bill provided this report:

Both teams were missing 2 players and the Bs were heavily out-graded but there were no quick games.

Sean won a pawn fairly early on and he converted smoothly in an endgame with rook and bishop each.

Kelechi lost the exchange and wasn't able to recover.

Leo had a strong attack but after I had sacrificed a pawn managed to get a bit of counterplay and then blundered with just a few minutes left.

Board 1 was very close for a long time and Isaac only won when Richard had to sacrifice a bishop to prevent a pawn queening but couldn't prevent a second pawn.

An enjoyable match.

   Central League Division 2

   Stirling E           1-4  Grangemouth C

1. Mick Bloor     1084  ½-½  Bill Gray      1486
2. Mick Murphy    1087  ½-½  Jim Stallard   1330
3. Rudra Pardhi   930   0-1  Crawford Welsh 1243
4. Stewart Cairns 719   0-1  Joe Johnstone  u/g
5. Josh Heesom    u/g   0-1  Sean Gray      u/g

Grangemouth had White on 1,3 and 5.

Graham provided this report

On board 3, both sides started a pawn push that saw Crawford win a rook. While Rudra had some play left, analysis showed that it would have been very difficult to get his a2 pawn promoted.

On board 5, Josh also dropped during Queen exchanges.

I only saw the very end of board 4 when Stewart, already a piece had a defender of g2 distracted then resigned.

I didn't see any of boards 1 and 2, although I'm told Mick M did well to get a draw, and with the match well and truly decided Mick B and Bill agreed a draw rather than grind out a long end-game.

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.

2025-12-15 Keddie Cup

It is a well-established tradition that the club runs the Keddie Cup on the final meeting before Christmas. It's a fun tournament with a complicated handicapping formula (see below) to give everyone, whatever their grading, a chance of winning the Cup.

A very helpful number of 24 players took part, allowing for four groups of six players in each, with the top two in each group going through to the knock-out stages.

Group 1 games

Group 3 games

The 2024 Champion, Rudra Pardhi and the 2023 winner, Ross Warcup were among the eight players going through to the quarter-finals.

Quarter-finals

The fourth quarter-final was an all-junior game

Semi-finals

The final was a contest between experience and youth, and the two protagonists are pictured with the trophy immediately before the deciding game.

Finalists

Club Treasurer Steve Smith presents the trophy