27 January 2014 - Central League Division 2

Dunfermline C v Stirling C
Bryan O'Rourke Peter Horne T Russell Derek Rodger Ben Volland	1474 1342   1239 1090	½ - ½ 1 - 0 1 - 0 0 - 1 ½ - ½	1458 1323 1318 1245 1207	Martyn Roe Mick Bloor Craig Manson Robert Togneri David Brodie
		3 - 2

27 January 2014 - Central League Division 1

Stirling A v Dunfermline A
Steve Smith   Graham Anderson   Robin Hayles   Neil Irving   Tony Pitson	1750   1670   1660   1657   1520	0 - 1   ½ - ½   ½ - ½   1 - 0   1 - 0	2149   1740   1607   1569   1321	Ian Robertson   Iain Sneddon   Stuart Black   Douglas Rew   George Webb
		3 - 2

20 January 2014 - Club Allegro

Dave Hewitt writes: Congratulations to Steve for winning the club allegro last Monday - his sixth win or joint-win in the 17 events held thus far (since 2005), which takes him two clear of the next most frequent winner (Graham). By the end of r3 this edition was a shakeup between Steve, Graham and me in terms of who was going to win it. I was clear leader after r3 but was then well beaten by Steve, who held his nerve to win a tricky ending against Robert L in r5 was I was squeezing past Graham to finish second.

As ever there was an entertaining mix of tight margins and sudden turnarounds. Robert L - who surely did better than anyone in relative grading terms - scored 2½/5 but also came very close to getting draws in his games against Graham and Steve (and possibly a win against Graham - a pawn on h7 just needed to be pushed one more square and the result would have been different). The final-round game against Steve was possibly the tightest of the lot - it was heading for a technical drawn ending as the clocks ticked down, but when Steve had just 25 secs left Robert moved into a check and the resulting two-minute bonus gave Steve enough time to work out how to win.

Steve also had a close shave in r3 against Gordon - with very little time left he was just one move away from mate but forgot to press his clock. Gordon very sportingly pointed this out to him. My own r3 game was also exciting and included probably the biggest swindle of the night - I was losing in about 20 different ways to Neil and close to resigning before he played something odd and allowed a two-move mate that I certainly didn't deserve.

Overall there were 12 players, and everyone won at least one game - always good to see. The next club allegro will probably be on Mon 28 April, although as ever with late-season stuff there might be a bit of date-juggling to accommodate postponed matches etc.

Time control: 15 minutes each for all moves

	Name	Grade	Rd 1	Rd 2	Rd 3	Rd 4	Rd 5	Place
1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12	Bill Cook   Graham Anderson   Neil Irving   Tony Pitson   Steve Smith   Dave Hewitt   Gordon Allcock   Robert Togneri   David Brodie   Robert Leckie   Mick Bloor   Craig Manson	1684   1593   1588   1581   1575   1502   1406   1278   1276   1224   1130   1071	1 W 7   1 B 8   1 W 9   ½ B 10   1 W 11   1 B 12   0 B 1   0 W 2   0 B 3   ½ W 4   0 B 5   0 W 6	1 B 6   1½ W 5   2 B 4   ½ W 3   1½ B 2   2 W 1   1 W 12   0 B 11   0 W 10   1½ B 9   1 W 8   0 B 7	2 W 11   2½ B 10   2 W 6   1 B 8   2½ W 7   3 B 3   1 B 5   ½ W 4   0 B 12   1½ W 2   1 B 1   1 W 9	2 B 2   3½ W 1   2 B 10   2 W 12   3½ B 6   3 W 5   1 W 11   ½ B 9   1 W 8   2½ W 3   2 B 7   1 B 4	3 W 4   3½ B 6   3 B 11   2 B 1   4½ W 10   4 W 2   1 B 9   1½ W 12   2 W 7   2½ B 5   2 W 3   1 B 8	=4   3   =4   =7   1   2   11   10   =7   6   =7   12

13 January 2014 - Central League Division 2

Stirling C v Stirling B
Martyn Roe Gordon Allcock Craig Manson Mick Bloor David Brodie	1458 1383 1318 1323 1207	½ - ½ 1 - 0 0 - 1 1 - 0 1 - 0	1810 1616 1559 1520 1518	Jim Shemilt Bill Cook John Blake Tony Pitson Dave Hewitt
		3½ - 1½

Dave Hewitt writes:- Tremendous win on Monday for Stirling C vs Stirling B - especially as C were the home team and thus only had two whites (on boards 2 and 4). They almost pulled off a shock in the reverse fixture in September, and this time - despite being outgraded by an average of 266 points per board - took their chances when an out-of-sorts B team provided them.

The first game to finish was on board 4, where Tony was two pieces up but allowed Mick to conjure a mate. John quickly levelled things with a win against Craig (John's the only B-teamer who has been in steady form this season, winning all four of his games) before Gordon beat Bill on board 2 to put the Cs ahead again. This left Jim and me both needing to win in order for the Bs to snatch the match, but by this stage we were both worse - Jim was an exchange down against Martyn in what looked to be the game of the night, while I'd messed up a reasonable middlegame position (not for the first time this season) and had no realistic hope of anything better than a draw, and even that looked unlikely with David well on top by now and playing good chess. The Jim-Martyn game ended in a draw by repetition, so I now needed to win from a lost position in order to draw the match (again not for the first time this season). But it was more a case of the captain going down with the ship and I resigned when David acquired his second Q. Not the best of nights for the Bs, but a well-deserved win for the Cs, who thus broke their duck in terms of league points this season.

Hewitt - Brodie

6 January 2014 - Central Allegro League

Badgers Brook 9 - 7 Stirling Wallace

I don't have round-by-round scores for this, but Steve Smith scored 3/4 with two wins and two draws, Robin Hayles and Jim Shemilt both scored 2/4, and Mick lost all of his games.

16 December 2013 - Keddie Cup

Dave Hewitt writes: Hope everyone who was there enjoyed the Keddie Cup last night. Good turnout, with 20 taking part, allowing a neat five players per group for the preliminary section. The 16 Stirling members were complemented by four guests: David Marshall - last year's runner-up; his Badgers Brook colleague and former Stirling stalwart (and double Keddie winner) Kenny McGeoch; Ken Stewart from the Polytechnic club; and young Finlay Anderson.

Congratulations go to Gordon Allcock, who won the title for the first time after having been runner-up two years ago. Runner-up this time was Martyn Roe (the 2005 winner), who came very close to taking the title again in what was surely the game of the night, the first of the two final games. This was a great cut-and-thrust encounter that left various of the spectators barely able to watch the latter stages, so goodness knows what it must have been like to play in. Gordon was a piece up for much of the game but Martyn hung in and managed to turn it round - but was unable to mate with Q+R against a bare K before his flag fell. He had, however, taken care to snap off Gordon's final pawn, meaning it was a draw - the only one in the entire tournament. So the colours were swapped, the times on the clock were halved and off they went again - and this time Gordon retained an early advantage and went on to win.

Gordon with the trophy

Overall, this year's Keddie felt like a classic of its kind: of the nine 1500+ players at the start, only one (me) made it through to the quarter-finals (where I was seen off by Martyn in another wild game). The final eight included four former winners (with two of the other four having previously lost finals), and it was the first Keddie since at least 2005 when no one named Blake made it through to the semis.

The semis featured the four form players on the night - but the two with 100% records, David Marshall and Robert Leckie, both lost. Overall, everyone bar Robert Togneri won at least one game, and there were lots of interesting encounters - eg I'd like to have seen more of the Nick Blake vs Gordon Q vs R ending in their quarter-final, but I was needing to concentrate on my own game. Finlay's win against John Blake and Tom McKay's win against Bill Cook definitely sounded like they were worth seeing. (Bill didn't qualify, but had the consolation of being the only person to beat the eventual winner.)

The social side of things seemed to go well - thanks to all who brought along foodstuffs and/or raffle prizes. It was good to see Craig Manson back from his transatlantic travels - and he might well be the first person ever to make it through to the Keddie quarter-finals while jetlagged.

The club is closed for the next two Mondays, and reopens on Monday 6 January (with the Stirling Wallace allegro team playing away at Badgers Brook that same night).

11 December 2013 - Central League Division 1

Dunfermline A v Stirling A
Ian Robertson   John McBride   Iain Sneddon   Fred Ossowski   Jim Webster	2149   1785   1740   1662   1613	1 - 0   0 - 1   0 - 1   1 - 0   0 - 1	1750   1810   1670   1660   1657	Steve Smith   Jim Shemilt   Graham Anderson   Robin Hayles   Neil Irving
		2 - 3

A match notable for White winning every single game. This first game is from board 2, where Jim Shemilt had White against John McBride.

Shemilt - McBride

 

 

The game below is from board 3, where I had White against Iain Sneddon.

Anderson - Sneddon