Chess Scotland

Gwbert-on-Sea in Wales was the venue for the opening match of this year's three-cornered contest between Scotland, Ireland and the holders of the trophy, Wales. It soon became apparent on our arrival that this would be an extremely difficult match for us since Wales had virtually their strongest possible side (missing only Hutchings) whilst our team was without Craig Pritchett, Roddy McKay and Paul Motwani. Nevertheless, our team still had very high hopes of beating up the Welsh, and our noisy, fanatical 'away crowd' of John and Nancy Glendinning, Walter and Margaret Munn, Stephen Swanson's wife Maureen (and their toddler daughter) and my wife Lynne, assured us of as much objective, unbiased support as the Welsh were sure to have.

As can be seen from the scores, the match ended in a very narrow win for the host nation, who were, in my totally unbiased opinion, lucky **!!:**.

	Scotland	Rnd 1	Rnd 2	Wales	Rnd 1	Rnd 2
1	CA McNab	½	½	GS Botterill	½	½
2	ML Condie	½	1	AH Williams	½	0
3	TJ Upton	½	0	JG Cooper	½	1
4	G. Morrison	0	½	IC Jones	1	½
5a	S. Swanson	1	-	P. Lamford	0	-
5b	S. Swanson	-	½	P. Cunningham	-	½
6	PM Giulian	½	½	CF Morris	½	½
7	Mrs H. Milligan	1	½	Miss J. Garwell	0	½
8	Miss R. Jackson	0	0	Miss D. Evans	1	1
		4	3½		4	4½

The match took place on 3-4 March [1984] at Edinburgh Chess Club. Previous results meant that Scotland had to win 11-5 to win the trophy.

Pawn grabbing was the Scottish tactic in round 1. Although Tim could only draw, Colin, Mark, Douglas, Phil and Alison all managed to convert their extra material to wins. Graham had a solid draw, and when Helen also drew it meant that we had made an excellent start of 6½ points in the first round.

After a night's drinking and card playing (by whom? - Ed.) the Irish put up much better resistance in the second round. Mark. Tim and Helen all had fairly uneventful draws. However, Graham won a fine game culminating in an excellent sacrificial attack. When Douglas won after an unsound exchange sacrifice, we needed only one more point for the trophy. Meanwhile, a bitter dispute had arisen in time trrouble on board eight. Both players became very upset by the events, and a whole series of blunders resulted, eventually culminating in a draw. On board one Colin was losing, but Phil was two pawns up with a completely won game. Under the circumstances Phil accepted the draw needed to give Scotland the trophy.

Colin eventually managed to save his game, and Ireland had been defeated 11½-4½ without Scotland losing a game - an excellent finale to the last match in this event.

Scotland therefore wins back the GLASGOW 800 CUP with what must be one of her best performances. [Ireland had earlier lost to Wales 6½-9½ - the tournament was decided on games points, rather than matches won. - AMcG]

Celtic Triangular Tournament

1983-84