Tuesday 13 February 2018

Dunfermline A 3- 2 Stirling A 12/02/18

Dunfermline A 3- 2 Stirling A

Ian Robertson 1919 1-0 Neil Irving 1879
Stuart Black 1675 0-1 Jim Shemilt 1767
Jamie O'Connor 1661 1-0 Steve Smith 1704
Mike Roy 1660 1-0 Bill Cook 1663
Gordon Greig U/G 0-1 Graham Anderson 1622



As a last minute replacement Gordon gave it a good go for the A-team on board 5 but as it was his first competitive game in 13 years it was no surprise when he lost.  He brought us luck however as the A-team got its first win of the season.  There were particularly complex games with Jamie giving up the exchange for loads of initiative.  Steve panicked in time pressure as Jamie’s forces gathered and he blundered back the exchange then next move dropped a piece.  Michael’s position was really hard to work out but his opponent had back rank mate issues which allowed Michael to set all sorts of problems  which firstly won an exchange and shortly after turned into a whole rook.  Once Michael played a final consolidating move it was over.  Boards 1 and 2 finished quickly with Neil getting his King caught in the centre after he tried to rescue his leaky queenside position.  Stuart unwisely allowed Jim’s bishop to pin knight against queen against king. Something had to fall so brought about a 1-1 score for boards 1 and 2 in under an hour.

Dunfermline B 4½-½ Grangemouth B 12/02/18

Dunfermline B 4½-½ Grangemouth B

Calum Smith 1581 ½ v ½ Ian Mason 1601
Stewart Brisbane 1465  1 v 0 Bill Gray 1499 
Douglas Rew 1452 1 v 0 Crawford Welsh 1335
Peter Horne 1370 1 v 0 David Fowler 1095
Gonzalo Forero U/G 1 v Scott Dickson 1014

The B-team result is hard to believe.  At one point I would have said that Calum was the only one likely to come away with a win.  Clearly I have no idea about the game.  Peter as usual came back from a rubbish position.  Gonzalo’s opponent resigned when Gonzalo put a rook to the back rank with mate unless his opponent took it with his knight but Scott (and of course Gonzalo) thought he could not move his knight as that would allow mate on the long diagonal so resigned.  The thing is that had he played knight takes rook the knight would then have guarded the g2 mating square!  Stewart won on time having just regained the initiative after being a bit worse.  Doug ground out a 70 move ending.  Calum pushed a fraction too early in the centre allowing Ian to get in with a perpetual