Edinburgh Civil Service Chess Club

07/08/2026

New art in Craigour area has scale model of flats with lots of small bronze items on top depicting historical things of interest. A few chess pieces, rook and Queen in the zoomed in photo. Perhaps there used to be a chess club in the area back in the day?! 🤔

26/06/2026

Chess in the Park starting again on the 5th July from 1-4 pm at the Croft, Leith Links.

https://www.lms.playchess.org.uk/orgpage/12

14/06/2026

Fixed the board setup by switching Kings and Queens, then obviously had to reply Nc6 with the black pieces! ♟️

15/05/2026

Online entry for Edinburgh Congress at this link -

* £2 discount for CS members/Students/Unemployed/Over 60s Titled Players in the Premier Section: 50% discount for FMs : Free for GMs and IMs, if entry received before 31 May 2026 via the on-line contact form here. Junior discount £10 - all main sections. Junior is under 18 at the start of the tour...

01/05/2026

First team surprised a few teams in the Premier with two wins and two draws to finish with a creditable 5th. The play off with the 2nd top in the division below has been declined so we will be playing in the Premier again next season. This is the first time we have had back to back seasons in the Premier for at least 20 years!

01/05/2026

Allan McDiarmid finally won the Spring Lightning after narrowly missing out on previous play offs!

01/05/2026

Someone pointed out the Lewis chessman on the banks of the Water of Leith near Canonmills. Apparently been there for 2-3 years but only visible at certain times when there is less vegetation! (I believe there is a 2nd piece also on the WOL somewhere)

12/03/2026

Congratulations to Edinburgh West 1 on winning the Allegro League.

13/02/2026

Better results for both civil service teams last night. Edinburgh West 1 extend lead over Musselburgh 1 to 1 point. Our first team move closer to EW1 by ½ point. (Didn't help we defaulted on bottom board twice!)

Two matches left and EW1 still favourites.

EW1 to play - Wandering Dragons and Bank of Scotland
MUS to play - Bank of Scotland and Edinburgh 2
CS1 to play - Corstorphine and Edinburgh 1

28/01/2026

Two lads turned up at the chess club on Monday night and started playing each other on a free board. I took a brief pause in my game v club champion to get them set up with others playing shorter games. After my game finished (a win hurrah!) I spoke to them and asked them if they were local and looking to join a club. Turns out they had searched Google maps to find a chess club open on a Monday and found us. They then drove an hour up from the borders. (near the English border)

Unfortunately no local clubs for them and they wanted a change from playing each other. They enjoyed it and might pop in occasionally!

Maybe if Dunbar gets started again this might be an option.

Glad now I took the effort to register our club officially with Google maps 👍