22-03-2022, 05:49 PM
As someone who recalls Jimmy going all the way back to Glasgow League and Tournament matches from the mid-1960s, I'm especially saddened to hear of this news. Certainly in those days, he wasn't just good in the endgame but also tended to prepare very well in the opening. He was one of the friendliest players and opponents that I can recall and an enthusiastic supporter of Scottish chess and its various events well into the 2010s. A danger to anyone, I remember a not long distant game in which he had visiting Belgian IM Jan Rooze in all sorts of trouble that lasted well into the middlegame. This was at an Edinburgh Open Scottish Championships. Jan, who eventually won, confessed to me that he had been thoroughly outplayed and had been exceptionally lucky when Jimmy went wrong in the critcial tactical phase of the game. About that time, Jimmy told me had moved to Barmulloch and we discovered that he lived in the same road where I had grown up from 5-16. Fond Glasgow memories. I'll miss him.