Dunfermline 2-3 Badgers Brook 14/11/16

Badgers were the stronger side on the night and deservedly won.  Fritz confirmed that my position was = throughout.  John should have gone for a pawn snatch but having not done so ended up with still the same holes in his position but no material to compensate.  Michael played well again in a complex Budapest Gambit but his opponent always seemed to have plenty freedom and a fair repetition ended the game.  Stuart started confidently but gradually got pushed back and lost after overlooking a simple check that had much more venom than it looked.  Fred won easily after his opponent made a number of early errors.

Badgers Brook had white on 1, 4 & 5

Dunfermline					Badgers Brook
Pnum	Surname	Forename	Grade	Result	Grade	Surname	Forename	Pnum
5811	Robertson	Ian	2024	0.5-0.5	2060	McGeoch	Kenny	14326
16813	McBride	John	1788	0-1	1949	Cooke	Mark	20648
7867	Roy	Michael	1662	0.5-0.5	1812	MacConnell	David	4756
1607	Black	Stuart	1647	0-1	1742	Ward	Stuart	23079
5557	Ossowski	Fred	1536	1-0	1188	Walker	Gordon	14635
			Total	2-3

Stirling C vs Dunfermline B, 14/11/16

Stirling C vs Dunfermline B, 14/11/16

Craig Manson 1387  0-1  Jamie O'Connor 1642
David Brodie (c) 1381  1-0  Stewart Brisbane 1512
Kyle Kirkpatrick 1360  1-0  Douglas Rew 1490
Tom Wallace 1243  1-0  Peter Horne (c) 1385
Mick Bloor 1163  0-1  Mark McLintock 1196

Dunfermline had white on the odd-numbered boards.

Stirling A 4-1 Dunfermline A 31/10/16

Stirling A 4-1 Dunfermline A

Jim Shemilt 1-0 Ian Robertson

Graham Anderson 0-1 Mike Roy

Steve smith 1-0 Stuart Black

Bill Cook 1-0 Ben Volland

Tony Pitson 1-0 Stewart Brisbane

On board one Ian lost after becoming distracted in a level position.  Mike won well with a strong king-side attack after Graham got too passive in the opening.  Stuart had a super looking position after just a few moves in an open Kings Gambit but snatched material too early and Steve found a nice counter exchange sacrifice to create enough big threats.  Ben is a bit out of sorts at the moment and tried to press a level game only to emulate his board one teammate and blunder.  Stewart also played a daft move advancing a pawn to attack a rook. Alas the pawn was guarding a knight which the rook simply took.  Not a match to remember.      

  

Stirling Bruce 2½ - 13½ Dunfermline Minnows 24/10/16

Congratulations to Dunfermline Minnows, who inflicted an absolute
gubbing on Stirling Bruce tonight. The Bruce team is lacking two of
its regulars this season and is under reconstruction as it were, but
even so a scoreline of this sort wasn't anticipated. It's the first
time in five seasons that Minnows have won this fixture, and almost
certainly the heaviest-ever defeat suffered by Bruce. Funnily enough,
amid it all, one of the two Bruce wins was by Graham against Ian -
courtesy of a fine swindle in a lost position, but a win against their
main man all the same.

Calum racked up a fine 4/4 score for Minnows, while young Carl played
the first two rounds for Bruce (and didn't disgrace himself by any
means) before going off at half time. It almost goes without saying
that Minnows were much the better team on the night. There have been
bigger wins in the league, but not many.

Stirling Bruce vs Dunfermline Minnows, 24/10/16

r1
Graham Anderson 1689  0-1  Jim Webster 1756
Bill Cook 1567  0-1  Calum Smith 1584
Robert Leckie 1250  1-0  George Webb 1466
Carl Zihan Kang 803  0-1  Ian Robertson (c) 2179
1-3

r2
Anderson  1-0  Robertson
Cook  0-1  Webster
Leckie  0-1  Smith
Kang  0-1  Webb
1-3 / 2-6

r3
Anderson  0-1  Webb
Cook  0-1  Robertson
Leckie  0-1  Webster
Dave Hewitt (c) 1516 0-1  Smith
0-4 / 2-10

r4
Anderson  0-1  Smith
Cook  0-1  Webb
Leckie  0-1  Robertson
Hewitt  ½-½  Webster
½-3½ / 2½-13½

Minnows had white in rounds 1 and 3

Individual scores -
Bruce: Anderson 1/4, Leckie 1/4, Hewitt ½/2, Cook 0/4, Kang 0/2
Minnows: Smith 4/4, Webster 3½/4, Robertson 3/4, Webb 3/4

Dunfermline A 1½-3½ Grangemouth A 10/10/16

1.       Ian Robertson 0-1 Uby Archibong

2.       Michael Roy ½ - ½ Alan Bell

3.       Stuart Black 0-1 Graeme Hamilton

4.       Jamie O’C0nnor 0-1 Dougie Will

5.       Fred Ossowski 1-0 John Smith

I was clearly better out the opening but went for too much too soon and Uby gradually took over the initiative. There was still never much in it but shortage of time proved a killer.  Michael and Alan was a bit of a see-saw with Michael comfortable but then got done tactically only for him to do the same to win Alan’s queen for a couple of pieces but offered a draw which may have been a time consideration or perhaps thinking he would not be able to break though.  Stuart looked fine for a long time but Graeme eventually got at the weakened king position.  Jamie said he felt good after the opening moves but got a bit negative after Dougie’s inevitable aggression and went down quickly.  Fred was not trying to do much but found a nice way to win queen side pawns after John dithered over where to put his pieces.      

Cumbernauld A 3 v 2 Dunfermline A 6/10/16

Sadly we went down when Michael lost having been winning earlier. All credit to David who sacrificed a piece for awkward counterplay which caused confusion and then he found a neat trick as Michael’s time dwindled.  Stuart held the draw after his opponent missed a neat way to win a pawn and probably the game. Once that chance went all the pawns got eliminated for the draw.  Fred said he got nothing out the opening and could not find any sensible way to continue after the forced exchange of queens so accepted the offer of a draw.  I felt under pressure throughout but apparently I was pretty much ok and perhaps a tad better at the end but having survived having to make my last 3 moves with only 4 seconds left on the clock I was relieved to just accept the draw.  I thought John was in trouble with all that pressure against the king so well done for surviving.

1 Stephen Kelly   =  Ian Robertson

2 Ralph Stirrat  =  John McBride

3 David Johnston 1-0 Michael Roy

4 Mark Monaghan  =  Stuart Black

5 George Thomson  =  Fred Ossowski 

Allegro League Showdown-11/04/15

Even with only the 3 final games of the season still running any one of Stirling Bruce, Grangemouth Tigers or Dunfermline Minnows could still win the league.  Tigers top 3 rated players were against Minnows 2,3 and 4 rated but Tigers needed to win all 3 games.  Minnows needed to score 1.5 from 3 while other scores favoured Bruce.

The first result was for Matthew who got a quick win over out of sorts Bill and thereby eliminated Tigers. Uby then overcame John leaving the title in the outcome of the Calum v Ian game.  After the usual ups and downs Calum emerged with an extra piece but the crucial factor was time.  When both players got to around 30 seconds each left Ian opted for a rook sacrifice forcing perpetual check.  That half was enough for Minnows who win the league by half a game point.

It was unfortunate that Tigers were missing a player for such an occasion though even without Hugh it still looked like Tigers had sufficient talent to get the 6.5 points they required. However this time the thrills and spills of individual games generally favoured the Minnows players and thereby enabled a successful defence of the title in the most dramatic finish we have had to the allegro league.

Minnows 11- 5

Round 1

Ian Robertson 1-0 Ubong Archibong

John McBride 1-0 Ian Mason

Calum Smith 1/2 Bill Gray

Matthew Stewart 1-0 default

Round 2

Ian Robertson 1-0 Ian Mason

John McBride 1-0 Bill Gray

Calum Smith 1-0 default

Matthew Stewart 0-1 Ubong Archibong

Round 3

Ian Robertson 1-0 Bill Gray

John McBride 1-0 default

Calum Smith 0-1 Ubong Archibong

Matthew Stewart 0-1 Ian Mason

Round 4

Ian Robertson 1-0 default

John McBride 0-1 Ubong Archibong

Calum Smith 1/2 Ian Mason

Matthew Stewart 1-0 Bill Gray

Dunfermline A 3-2 Cumbernauld A-14/3/16

The captain missed his first A team match through illness since September 1973! Maybe him not playing board 1 and me not playing board 2 helped the team.

Stuart Black 1610 1-0   Ralph Stirrat 1630 (W)
Stewart Brisbane 1530 ½-½George Thomson 1543 (W)
Matthew Stewart 1493 0-1 Steven Monaghan 1181 (B)
Bryan O’Rourke 1359 1-0  Dave Flaherty 1097 (W)
Peter Horne 1357 ½-½ Brian Kerr 1094 (B)

Dunfermline win 3-2

Dunfermline Minnows 7-9 Stirling Bruce, 22/2/16

Stirling got off to a flier, then just managed stagger over the line
despite a strong Dunfermline effort in r4 - the gap closed to 6-8
before two draws in the final two games.


Dunfermline Minnows vs Stirling Bruce, 22/2/16

Ian Robertson (c) 2174  0-1  Dave Hewitt (c) 1448
Jim Webster 1645  ½-½  John Blake 1596
George Webb 1497  0-1  Graham Anderson 1630
Ben Volland 1483  0-1  Bill Cook 1642
½-3½

Robertson  1-0  Cook
Webster  ½-½  Hewitt
Webb  0-1  Blake
Volland  0-1  Anderson
1½-2½  /  2-6

Robertson  ½-½  Anderson
Webster  ½-½  Cook
Webb  ½-½  Hewitt
Volland  ½-½  Blake
2-2  /  4-8

Robertson  1-0  Blake
Webster  ½-½  Anderson
Webb  ½-½  Cook
Volland  1-0  Hewitt
3-1  /  7-9

Minnows had white in rounds 2 and 4.

Individual scores
Minnows: Robertson 2½, Webster 2, Volland 1½, Webb 1
Bruce: Anderson 3, Cook, Blake, Hewitt all 2

A couple of Central League results

Division 1:

Stirling A v Dunfermline A, 29/2/16

Shivan Murdochy 1912  ½-½  Ian Robertson (c) 2085
Jim Shemilt 1778  1-0  Stuart Black 1610
Steve Smith (c) 1702  ½-½  Ben Volland 1543
Graham Anderson 1671  ½-½  Stewart Brisbane 1530
Bill Cook 1666  1-0  Matthew Stewart 1493

Stirling A  3½-1½  Dunfermline A

Dunfermline had white on boards 2, 3 and 5.

++++++++++++++

Division 2:

Badgers Brook B vs Stirling C, 29/2/16

Dave McGilvary (c) 1573  0-1  Craig Manson 1306
Robert McCord 1361  0-1  David Brodie (c) 1301
Derek Raffan 1251  1-0  Robert Togneri 1219
Dylan Gillies u/g  0-1  Michael Cook u/g
Mark Brown u/g  1-0  Sam Cook 488

Badgers Brook B  2-3  Stirling C

Stirling had white on boards 2, 3 and 4.

Grangemouth A 4.5-0.5 Dunfermline A - 17/2/16

1. Uby Archibong 1/2 Ian Robertson
2. Alan Bell 1-0 Andy Forbes
3. Graham Hamilton 1-0 Calum Smith
4. Doug Will 1-0 Bryan O’Rourke
5. Ian Mason 1-0 Glynis Grant

Well the match went as expected with 4 of Dunfermline's A-team unavailable (only 2 would have been available if the match had been played some other week so would have made little difference).

However the B squad gave it a go. Other than Calum who went wrong early the others made Grangemouth work just a wee bit for their wins. In fact a relieved Ian M was down to his last 2 minutes before finally breaking through to beat Glynis in the last game to finish.  Bryan was 2 pawns up against Dougie but it always looked like Dougie’s active pieces were well worth the sacrificed material.  Andy had an opportunity to make it interesting against Alan with a d4 move that would have exploited the weak white squares but his actual choice left him a piece down for not enough compensation but required some care from Alan to net the point.  Ian and Uby had another open and entertaining game.  The complexity made it difficult to be totally accurate with computer assessment at the game end showing Ian to be still +1.5 after missing a move (26h3!) which would have been +5 in my favour and earlier missing another obscure but utterly winning move (24Rb5). However a couple of moves earlier Uby would have got to +2 himself if he had played his queen to a more subtle square (20Qc8!).  As it was the difficulty in assessing how much time remained on the analogue clock meant I should offer a draw which Uby generously accepted though he may well have won on time had he continued.

The full Board 1 game

White: Ian Robertson  Black: Uby Archibong

1c4 e5 2Nc3 Bb4 3e4 Nf6 4Nf3 0-0 5d3 Bc3+ 6bc Re8 7Be2 h6 8g4 c6 9g5 hg 10Bg5 d5 11Nd2 Be6 12cd cd 13 Rb1 b6 14 Bf3 Nc6 15ed Bd5 16Rg1 e4 17Be4? (better was de) Ne4 18 de Be4 19Ne4 Re4+ 20 Kf1 Qe8? (better was Qc8) 21 Bf6 Qe6 22Rg7+ Kf8 23Qf3 Re8 24 Rh7? (Rb5 wins) Ne7?

25Rh8+? (25Bg7+ Kg8 26 Rh8+ wins the exchange) Ng8 26Rb4 draw agreed!  However if white found 26h3 taking away the g4 square black cannot defend.