SNCL (Scottish National Chess League) – Round 1 & 2 report!
SEASON 2023-24
SNCL (Scottish National Chess League)
Sun 22nd Oct 23
Round 1 & 2
Dundee City teams are a joint venture by Castlehill CC & Dundee CC.
The SNCL is two nights longer as we move to 10 teams in the divisions, and an all-play-all format! We only entered three teams this time around, just to make sure we could fill them every time!
Division One
Round 1 – 10am
Dundee City A (2089) 3 – 2 (1886) CS BOS 1
It turned out to be a tough start for defending champions, Dundee City A, as CS BOS 1 pushed them all the way! It was not helped by a few players being late due to diversions caused by storm Babet! Mind you we were lucky the SNCL took place at all! In the end, David Findlay, Andrew Wright, Stephen Hogg & Helge Magnussen proved too strong and got Dundee City A off to the best possible start!
Division Two
Dundee City B (1559) 4 – 1 (1413) Corstorphine
With a weakened team, grading wise, this was going to be a tough ask for our “B” team, but the players stepping in did the business and showed us what strength in depth we have as a squad!
Ray Noble on bottom board, playing only in the morning match, got the team off to the best possible start with a 15-move win, with his usual sacking gambit style we have come to know him for! This was followed with wins from Tom Wardlaw and Kam Wan, ably supported by two draws from Matthew Deigham and Alisdair McLeod! Not a bad start at all!
Division Three
Dundee City C (1168) 1 – 4 (1526) Inverclyde Phoenix
Took about being an under-dog! Our “C” team were out graded on all boards by a massive amount! The only good news, if you could call it that, was Inverclyde only had 4 players so defaulted the bottom board! Captain, Daniel Coleman was the player losing out. Ana Belen Otero Seijas, Harvey Duke, Eve Kenicer and Afshin Alijani all put up good fights and made the other team work for it, but in the end experience and strength proved the winning factor! On an up note, all players will have learnt a lot from this experience and will be the better for it, if they can take it on board!
Division One
Round 2 – 3pm
Forth Valley A (1860) ½ – 4½ (2089) Dundee City A
You can`t always know how things are going to go, especially after the tough first round match, but this time our “A” team were in full throttle mode and showed us and Forth Valley, why they are the defending champions! Helge made it two wins in a row, as did Andrew Wright, with Ed Spencer and Stephen Hogg joining in. Captain, David Findlay got the obligatory draw to finish a perfect end to the day for our “A” team!
Division Two
Forth Valley B (1860) 2 – 3 (1625) Dundee City B
With our “B” team getting a boast, with captain Alastair Dawson back and Ray dropping out, our overall team strength was increased! It was a close fought game which to be honest could have gone either way! This time however, it was Dundee City C teams’ day with Matthew Deighan and Alisdair McLeod winning, Alastair Dawson & Kam Wan losing and Tom Wardlaw on board 4 bringing home the points under a lot of pressure! What a team performance and what a start for Dundee City B team winning both of their opening matches with a under strength team! Credit where credit is due team!
Division Three
Paisley (1467) 5 – 0 (1168) Dundee City C
This is like a boxing match where managers pick their fighters opponents to make sure they will come to no harm! Dundee City C team were once again out graded by a country mile, but over the board, you would not have known, as all our players preformed well above their grades to bring the fight to their higher graded opponents and make them work for the wins! You can`t ask more than that and I am very proud of all of them for how they played and handled themselves during both matches. Yes, it was 5 – 0, but performance wise in comparison with gradings, it was phenomenal!
The next 2 rounds are not to January 2024, which is one hell of a wait!
Come on Dundee City!