Central League Division 2
Stirling C 4-1 Stirling E
1. Nathanael Loch 1515 1-0 Michael Murphy 1087
2. David McAlister 1445 1-0 Stewart Cairns 719
3. Toby Geyer 1302 0-1 Rudra Pardhi 930
4. Kai Austin 946 1-0 Chris Woodhouse u/g
5. Josh Heesom u/g* 1-0 Jamie Scanlon u/g
Stirling C had white on boards 2 and 4
* Live rating: Josh Heesom 879
Nathanael, captain of the C's provided this report on the match:
Stirling C didn't have Kenny or Kelechi for this match, so many thanks to David, Kai and Josh for standing in.
We still have one more to play against Grangemouth C, but I believe this win cements Stirling C as winners of Division 2.
Board 1: My game against Mick was a tricky one. He played a stonewall against me, which I don't really understand how to play against, and so my opening position was truly awful. However, despite Isaac and I thinking after the game that I was probably close to losing from the opening alone, Stockfish actually only has it as +0.6 in the resulting structure. Mick pushed the pawns too early, which allowed me to win immediately with a skewer on the Rook and Queen sat on the main light-diagonal. But if not for a winning tactic, he was the favourite to win from an objective evaluation!
Board 2: I didn't see much of this game, but I believe David told me this was his first serious game for a long time, so many thanks to him for coming out of hibernation last minute.
Board 3: I believe Toby was doing well out of the opening here, but something must have gone wrong later. This was the last game to finish on the night, but I didn't see how it ended. At a few moments, I saw that Toby had chances to win the exchange, but his king was unsafe, so there was possibly some sort of danger that I wasn't aware of. Rudra did well to win this pairing.
Board 4: I didn't see any of this game, but this was the second to last to finish.
Board 5: A bit of a wild back and forth in this game. Queens were en prise from both sides throughout, and I spotted wins for both players. Ultimately, Jamie would lose his pieces allowing Josh to make two queens, and ladder mate to finish.
Thanks to Graham for providing the game-score of the E's win on Board 3.
