Dumfries and Galloway Chess Club

28/08/2025

Last Monday was the Dumfries & Galloway Chess Club's AGM, which included the prize giving for the 2024/25 competitions.

Here's a recap of how last season's results before we kick off next season on Monday:

Anne Sim Trophy:

Winner: Stephen Thompson
Runner-up: Stavros Karampatos

Cyril Bown Quickplay:

Winner: Michael Green
Runner-up: Jonathan Bell

McQueen Competition:

Winner: Gordon Lyburn
Runner-up: Don Garford

Knockout Competition:

Winner: Stavros Karampatos
Runner-up: Michael Green

Haig McCulloch Doubles Competition:

Winners: Stavros Karampatos & Jonathan Bell
Runners-up: Michael Green & Gordon Lyburn

The Colin Thomson Cup:

Winner: Jonathan Bell

Club Championship:

Winner: Michael Green
Runner-up: Stavros Karampatos

The new season is will begin next Monday with the first round of the Anne Sim trophy, which is an allegro tournament involving 4 games per evening with 20 minute time control.

We're always looking for new players who love the game of chess. Every Monday from 7.30pm at Dumfries Railway Club.

Chess Scotland Dumfries and Galloway Standard Dumfries Courier

04/05/2025

Club Captain's Report

Scottish National Chess League Round 9 and Scottish Team Blitz Championship - Final Day 27/04/2025

In the morning, Dumfries and District were up against a tough Perth team in the last round of the league, and were in danger of relegation.

They were 2 match points ahead of CSBOS2 (Civil Service Bank of Scotland), but if the team lost, and CSBOS2 won, relegation would go to the team with the least game points over the season, and Dumfries and District were only 2 game points ahead at the start of play.

As it turned out, Michael on board 1 lost a pawn early on, and couldn’t get back into the game against his higher rated opponent. 1-0 Perth

On board 2, Stavros miscalculated and lost a piece, so had to try to fight hard to get anything from the game.

On board 3, Stuart was under pressure

On board 4, Jonny was attacking in a very messy position, but was down in material.

On board 5, Rick lost a piece and had no compensation for it.

It was going poorly on all of the boards, while CSBOS2 were winning their match. It was going to come down to game points.

In the end CSBOS2 won 3:2, so Dumfries and District, even if losing the match, could avoid relegation if scoring just 1 point in the match.

It was hard to see where this point was coming from.

On board 2, Stavros, despite being a piece down, managed to draw his game, so that was half a point.

On board 3, the pressure against Stuart finally proved too much. 0 points

On board 5, Rick finally had to throw in the towel in an endgame with no prospects. 0 points.

It was all down to Jonny on board 4, he had lost his queen by now, and his opponent had a material advantage, but was getting short of time on the clock. Incredibly, Jonny’s opponent blundered a queen, and lost the game, and so Dumfries and District survive in Division 2 for another season.

In the afternoon, it was the Ken Stewart Trophy, which is the new name for the Scottish Team Blitz championship.

Dumfries and District were represented in the 4 board format, by Michael, Stavros, Jonny, and Rick.

There were 24 teams involved with the Dundee City A ending up the winners, followed by Dunfermline and Hamilton.

https://chess-results.com/tnr1167700.aspx?lan=1

Dumfries finished a rather disappointing 17th out of 24 teams, although the opposition was tough.

It hasn’t been a great season for Dumfries, but hopefully 2025-2026 will be better!

https://chess-results.com/tnr1042217.aspx?lan=1

22/04/2025

The Club saw some competition ties being played on Easter Monday

Knockout Semi-Finals

Michael Green 1 - 0 Jonathan Bell

The game started out as a Nimzo-Indian Defence, which progressed into a messy middle game. Both kings were un-castled and pawn structures had lost their integrity. Jonny managed to go a pawn up, but allowed Michael to finish his development, get his king castled and start making threats. After a tactical miscalculation, Michael managed to capitalise on a blunder, allowing him to trap Jonny's knight and force a resignation within 20 moves.

- - - - -

McQueen Semi-Finals

Don Garford 1 - 0 Torin Gibson

Minor pieces were traded off leaving both players with just the queens, rooks and pawns on the board. Torin was able to go 2 pawns up at one point, with victory looking likely. However after some shuffling of pieces in the middlegame, Don was able to capitalise on Torin's weak king along the 7th and 8th ranks and snuck in with his rook & queen, forcing Torin's resignation in light of an unstoppable checkmate threat.

Rick Dodington 0 - 1 Gordon Lyburn

Rick opted for a Jobava London setup against Gordon, who responded with a Pirc-defence-style setup with d6 and knight f6. With Rick's bishop and knight placed on e3 and f3, Gordon laid a sneaky trap that was missed by Rick. Pawn to e5 was played, attacking Rick's dark-squared bishop on f4, after it moved back, Gordon advanced the same pawn to e4, forking Rick's light-squared bishop and knight. After winning the piece, Gordon didn't let up and managed to see the victory out.

The McQueen final will be between Don Garford & Gordon Lyburn.

- - - - -

Haig Tournament

Colours were drawn for the Haig final, which is a doubles final involving Gordon Lyburn & Michael Green VS Jonathan Bell & Stavros Karampatos.

Gordon & Michael will be playing white against Jonny and Stavros with the black pieces.

The final will take place on the 12th of May.

15/04/2025

A lively night at the chess club on Monday with 15 attending, despite there only being one competition.

Michael G defeated Rick in a hard-fought catch-up Haig McCulloch game.

Michael initially won a piece, but a clever pin from Rick recovered the piece, and the game went to an endgame with Michael one pawn up, which was enough in the end.

Next week it is the semi-final phase of the Knockout and McQueen trophies.

09/04/2025

https://www.chessscotland.com/grading-results/event2025/SNCL_Division_2.html

Scottish National League Chess Report for Rounds 7 & 8 from 23rd March 2025

Morning session (R7):

Dumfries came into this round near the bottom of the division 2 table, and were playing relegation rivals, so two wins were needed to have a chance of avoiding relegation.

In the morning game, Dumfries were paired against Costorphine, from Edinburgh, and outgraded our opponents on every board – so it could have been an easy win.

After Stavros and Jonathan lost to a talented youngster, we were down 2-0, and it was looking bleak. Michael, on board one, was in a difficult position, with few winning chances, and Stuart, on board 3 had an unclear position. Kieran, on board 5, seemed
to be winning easily.

As it transpired, on board one, Michael’s opponent got lost in the tactics, and blundered, Stuart finally prevailed, and Kieran’s opponents gave in, for an unexpected 3-2 victory.

Afternoon session (R8):

On to the afternoon, where Dumfries played Edinburgh Civil Service Bank of Scotland. Again, we outgraded them on most boards, but again it was difficult.

Michael managed to win material on board 1, but at such a terrible cost in pressure, with the king stuck in the middle of the board, that he lost in 30 moves.

Stavros got a rather stodgy position with black but managed to grind his opponent down in typical fashion. Stuart was up against a difficult opponent, who was much higher graded in the past, and lost eventually.

Jonathan recovered from his disappointing game in the morning, showing his class to get a good win.

The match was still 2:2, with one game to finish. Kieran won the glory leg convincingly, to give Dumfries a 3: 2 victory.

08/04/2025

The club was well attended last night, including a welcome appearance by our Secretary who hasn't been seen much this season.

Two catch-up games were played in the Knockout competition:

Rick defeated Stan in a hard fought game; Rick had won two pawns in the earlier part of the game, Stan was pushing on the queenside when he allowed Rick to checkmate him in two on the other side of the board.

Stephen defeated Stuart in a tense game, after winning a pawn, he held on to it, and eventually, under pressure, pushed his d-pawn up the board to win in a complex position.

Next week there is a Haig competition catch-up game scheduled between Michael and Rick, otherwise a free week for friendly games.

18/03/2025

A busy night for round 2 of the knockout competition.

6 games were played, and 15 attended:

S Karampatos 1-0 M Green
T Gibson 1-0 S Thompson
S Marchbank 0-1 G Lyburn
D Garford 0-1 J Bell
D Bell v A Berquist 0-1
A McDonald 0-1 C Fisher

Next week it's a free week, to catch up with unplayed games. As always everyone is welcome to come along for 7:30pm

On Sunday it's rounds 7+8 of the Scottish League in Dunfermline where the team are battling against relegation in division 2,

Results so far:

Chess-Results.com is a powerful and dedicated server only for chess-results. The tournament archive of chess-results.com contains more than 40.000 tournaments from around the world.

31/12/2024

https://congress.org.uk/congress/532/home

The Lothians Allegro - 5-Round Swiss tournaments played under the rules of Chess Scotland (CS) - will take place on Sunday 19 January 2025.

Venue:
Bainfield Bowling & Social Club
34 Hutchison Causeway
Edinburgh
EH14 1RU

31/12/2024

https://congress.org.uk/congress/502/home

Perth Chess Congress - 2025

A Scottish Chess Tour Event

Open and Major - Fri 23rd to Bank Holiday Mon 26th May 2025
Minor - Friday 23rd to Sunday 25th May 2025

For players who do not appear in the standard list, other lists may be used at the discretion of the organisers. Ungraded players must provide evidence for the organisers to assess their playing strength and any previous known grade must be declared.

20/12/2024

Our Chess Scotland registered coach is available for training sessions for new and existing members on Monday 23rd December from 1930 - 2130 upstairs at the Railway Club, Leafield Road, Dumfries, DG1 2DR.

Topics can cover rules of the game, friendly matches and match etiquette, opening moves and tactical discussions, how to join the club, and so on.

Coaching is free and no booking required.

09/10/2024

Some photos from Monday's prizegiving for last season's Winners & Runners-up.

Congratulations again to everyone on their achievements.

The new season is already underway and I will post the last 2 weeks worth of results, but there's no reason you can't still get involved even though some tournaments have already begun.

We're always looking for new players who love the game of chess. Every Monday from 7.30pm at Dumfries Railway Club.

Chess Scotland Dumfries and Galloway Standard Dumfries Courier Dumfries and Galloway! Whats Going on ?

19/08/2024

Tonight’s club single round robin session is starting all games with the Morra Gambit Accepted position.