1 February 2016 - Central League Division 1

Tonight's match v Grangemouth was effectively a title decider. Grangemouth, on 4 wins out of four, could only be caught by us, as both Dunfermline and Cumbernauld have already lost at least twice.

Stirling A v Grangemouth A
Shivan Murdochy   Jim Shemilt   Steve Smith   Graham Anderson   Bill Cook	1912   1778   1702   1671   1666	0 - 1   0 - 1   0 - 1   0 - 1   ½ - ½	2224   1956   1944   1946   1719	Uby Archibong   Alan Bell   Graham Hamilton   Dougie Will   Ian Mason
		½ - 4½

When Dougie Will sits down on board 4, it's always going to be tough...Bill and Ian finished with a draw first. I felt I was struggling from move 8 onwards, although according to Stockfish I had my chances at various points. The rest of the games all finished within a few minutes of each other, and all in favour of Grangemouth.

Congratulations to Grangemouth on their league title!

Games

Three games coming up...

The first game is from last month's match against Dunfermline, where Neil Irving had Black against John McBride. Neil provided some extensive analysis of this game, and my apologies if I've butchered it...

McBride - Irving

The second game here is from 18 January, when John Blake had White against Gordon Allcock in the Richardson Cup.

Blake - Allcock

 

 

The final game is from the match against Cumbernauld, also from 18 January, where I had Black against David Johnston. Hopefully some lessons in the importance of development can be learned.

Johnston - Anderson

25 January 2016 - Central League Division 2

Stirling C v Stirling B
Craig Manson David Brodie Robert Togneri Mick Bloor Tom McKay	1306 1301 1219 1183 798	0 - 1 ½ - ½ ½ - ½ ½ - ½ 0 - 1	1562 1502 1486 1460	Tony Pitson Robin Hayles Dave Hewitt Gordon Allcock Michael Cook
		1½ - 3½

18 January 2016 - Central League Division 1

Stirling A v Cumbernauld A
Jim Shemilt   Steve Smith   Graham Anderson   Bill Cook   Tony Pitson	1778   1702   1671   1666   1562	1 - 0   ½ - ½   1 - 0   ½ - ½   1 - 0	1738   1630   1570   1543   1181	Mark Monaghan   Ralph Stirrat   David Johnstone   George Thomson   Steven Monaghan
		4 - 1

11 January 2016 - New Year Blitz

Dave Hewitt writes:- Last Monday saw the inaugural new year blitz tournament, played just for fun (no grading of games) and with a lively time control of three minutes plus two seconds per move. We managed to squeeze in nine rounds, and it developed into a scrap between Bill - who led for a while - and Graham, who took and retained the lead after Bill lost in r7. Graham's undefeated total of 8/9, courtesy of seven wins and two draws, was very impressive, and as he also holds the 15-minute allegro title he's very much the current king of the fast stuff at Stirling chess club.

Bill was clear second with 7/9, and the third step on the podium was quite crowded with Craig M, Michael and me all finishing on 5½/9.

Graham writes:- I can't fit the cross-table in, but for those interested in the full results, you can download the file here.

Keddie Cup 2015

Congratulations to Sam Cook, winner of the 2015 Keddie Cup handicap tournament! Starting as the lowest graded player in the tournament, Sam calmly beat every player put up against him, winning all of his group games and progressing through the knock-out stages to the final against Gordon Allcock. Starting a Queen and Knight down and with only three minutes to Sam's ten, Gordon made a good job of frustrating Sam's attacks, until, down to seconds, Gordon blundered a Rook which also turned out to be checkmate. Well done Sam!

Bill Cook presents Sam with the trophy.

Thanks to everyone who turned up, and special thanks to Dave Hewitt for his organisation.

Games

Thanks to Jim, Neil, and Dave for providing their games from recent matches against Dunfermline. Neil's will have to wait a while, until I can make his extensive analysis work on this website. In the meantime - the first game here is Jim Shemilt v Ian Robertson, where Jim had White.

Shemilt - Robertson

 

 

 

The second game is Dave Hewitt v Calum Smith. Analysis by Dave.

Hewitt - Smith