Category Archives: Team results

Dear Club Member

Last Saturday we had an online match against the Mechanic’s Institute from San Francisco. We lost a fairly well balanced match 15-11. The match was streamed by our opponents on their twitch channel. We are looking to set up a return match next month. [NB: The Mechanics Institute have included two annotated games from the match in their weekly newsletter]

One year ago we took the decision to close the club. We certainly did not anticipate the closure lasting this long. Hopefully with the vaccine rolling out, we will be able to open up over the summer. But this will depend on progress against the virus.

This weeks’ events are below. Both start at 7.45pm.

  • Tuesday Rapids (7 mins + 5s/move)
  • Wednesday Blitz (1822 to join)

Thanks

Neil

Dear Club Member

Rounds 3 and 4 of the Scottish Online National Chess League took place yesterday. Edinburgh 1 had a default win against Edinburgh University, followed by a 2.5-2.5 draw against a strong Dundee side. The second Team lost close matches 2-3 against Oban and Ardrossan. With a bit of luck we may have come away with more. The final match takes place on March 28th. The 1st Team have a chance of winning the title, but will need a big victory against Bon Accord.

This week’s chess events:

Saturday match vs Mechanics Institute, 7pm

You will first need to be a member of our group on chess.com to play (click on the group link above to join) then on the day you will be able to join via this link.

Thanks

Neil

Dear Club Member

We kicked off the Scottish National Online Chess League campaign on Sunday. The 1st Team had a 5-0 win against Dundee 2, and drew with CSBOS. The 2nd Team drew against the Sneaky Stalematers (who I think are Dunbar!), and won 3-2 against Edinbugh University 2. Full results here.

Next round is on Feb 28th, and I’ll be in touch in a couple of weeks.

We’ll continue with the rapids on Tuesday and blitz on Wednesday again. Hopefully you find at least one that is of interest. Both start at 7.45pm and run for 90 minutes.

Tuesday Rapid (7mins + 5s / move)

Wednesday Blitz (password 1822 to join)

Thanks

Neil

Dear Club Member

Tuesday Evening Social

We have arranged a zoom meeting for Tuesday (15th December)  at 7.45pm for which members have been sent an email invitation.  It will be an informal meet, with a chance to catch up with other club members.

If there are a few newcomers I can give a quick tour of lichess online, and there will be an opportunity to play or watch some chess too.

Match against Spartak Vlasim

We lost a blitz match on Tuesday against Czech side Spartak Vlasim by a score of 46-35. Our team was Calum MacQueen, Sergio Bermudez, Neil Berry, Daniel McGowan, Graeme Kafka, David Oswald, Willie Rutherford, Duncan Grassie, Mike Ridge. Calum and Sergio led the way, scoring 8 and 7.5 /9 respectively. An enjoyable (but tough!) match.

Spartak have close ties with Czech GM David Navara, and David kindly sent us a signed copy of his book “My Chess World” for our library.

Wednesday Blitz

Link is below. Password 1822 to join, kick off is 7.45pm as usual.
https://lichess.org/tournament/rz54FtR4

Best wishes,

Neil

On May 23rd, we played an online match against Andre’s old club from Germany, SK Bebenhausen. The format was a 9 player Scheveningen tournament, which means that each player from Edinburgh plays 1 game against each of the Bebenhausen team (and vice versa). The time control was 5 minutes + 3 second increment, so all games were played in one session. The system was very efficient, you challenged each opponent in turn and submitted the result afterwards on the lichess group forum.

The final Score was Edinburgh 42 – 39 Bebenhausen. We edged a close match! Our top scorers were Calum MacQueen (7/9), Adam Bremner and Sven Stocklose (both 6.5).

Some highlights from the event:

Rudolf Brauning top scored for Bebenhausen, but ran into an inspired performance from Alastair. Notes mainly from the winner.

Thanks to our opponents, and to Andre for arranging the match. It was great fun and played in a friendly spirit.

On Saturday evening we took part in a UK blitz team tournament online. The “UK Clubs Self Isolating Pawns Team Battle” featured 8 clubs, and was run on the lichess server using the Team Battle Arena option. The tournament ran for 2 hours, and you played as many blitz games as you could fit in against players from other clubs. The top 5 scorers from each club were used to calculate final standings.

The pairing system itself is a bit unpredictable, it is some combination of the Swiss pairing system and using the players who are available, given there are no set round times. You just go with it! It is possible to pause in between to get a cup of tea for example (or something stronger), and joining late or leaving early is possible too.

We managed a highly creditable 2nd place behind winners Hackney. Clement and Calum were out top scorers, and in fact were top scorers for the whole tournament! Final results can be seen here

We’ll be trying to go one better next Saturday at 8pm! To play just go to the Team homepage on lichess and sign up to the UK Self Isolating Pawns Team Battle on 2nd May.