The Bowes-Lyon Trophy (an individual tournament for players rated under 1600) took place during the weekend of 15th-16th June, with 30 players competing.
Two players shared first place – Ewan Trantor (Phones, Glasgow) and Sakthi Murugesa Pandian (Wandering Dragons), with Ewan winning the trophy as a result of having a higher Buchholz tiebreak score.
[Report by organiser Calum McGillivray]
The 4th team were playing in Division 2 again this season, after having finished 3rd in the 2017-18 season.
We won our first league match against Civil Service 2. We then lost four games in a row (against Edinburgh University 2, Edinburgh West 2, Sandy Bells 1 and Pentland Hills 2) which put us in danger of relegation.
After narrow victories against Wandering Dragons C and Dunbar, we lost our penultimate match against Bank of Scotland 2.
This meant we needed a win away against Gorgie Dalry to avoid a relegation playoff. We won the game 3.5-2.5, which ensured we avoided relegation and finished 7th in Division 2.
Team:
Calum McGillivray (Captain), Bill Platts, Ian Whittaker, Niall Fergusson, Martin Brejter, Dietah Connolly Sams, Allan Buchan, Paul Stewart, Jennifer Shelley, Daniel Ranson, and Snorri Kristjansson.
Full Division 2 results available here.
[Report by team captain Calum McGillivray]
Club Blitz 2019 Championship
The end of season blitz tournament was ably run by Andre on Tuesday 18th June over 7 rounds. Raj, with supplemental assistance from David, ensured that we all were all well acquainted with the blitz rules (which enabled me to swindle a win against Keith in a totally lost position!).
The competition was contested by 19 players with the trophy (to be presented at the AGM in September) finally being won by Club President Neil who achieved an unbeaten score of 6.5/7.
Neil was closely chased into second place with a score of 5.5/7 by visitor Andy (now based in Washington DC but originally from Chicago). I had quickly lost my way playing the Benko Gambit against him ….. perhaps retribution for walking off with Andy’s home town trophy way back in 1988 (run by Chicago Lawn Chess Association)!?!?
Petros took 3rd place with a score of 5/7.
A great time was had by all – an excellent evening.
Unfortunately 2018 reigning champion Sergio Bermudez was unable to participate this year – but here’s belated recognition of his win last year:
Keith Ruxton, a past member of the club (see the newspaper clipping from the club’s archives!), has kindly donated his chess library to the club. This includes 65 books on a wide variety of topics, several volumes of both Scottish Chess and New in Chess magazines, New in Chess Yearbooks together with a number of opening DVDs.
There doesn’t appear to be much duplication of the books already in the club library and they have all been catalogued and placed in the club’s library with a full list of books and magazines to be posted shortly on the club noticeboard.
Many thanks Keith!
Team captain Colin reports on the 3rd team’s survival in Division 1 of the Edinburgh & Lothians League this season.
With high hopes of maybe challenging for the league, we found ourselves down at the wrong end of the table yet again.
After a poor start, only taking 1 point from our first 5 games, the troops rallied after the turn of the year winning a couple of big games, the highlight being against Pentland Hills. With Pentland outgrading us on 5 of the 6 boards, we produced our best until last with a stunning 4-2 win.
With Corstorphine losing their last game to Dragons we finished in 5th place 1 point ahead of them.
Playoff match.
We were supposed to be playing University 2 who finished 2nd in Division 2 but, with their 1st team getting relegated from the Premier, they gave us the tie. HAPPY DAYS!
Colin Hutchison (Captain), Ivor McConnell, Lindsay McGregor, Ian Whittaker, Christopher McIntee, David Archibald, John Smith, Martin Brejter, Ben Ridge, Jake Thwaites, and Jonathan Fallman
Full Division 1 results available here