The 19th BOBBY GOW MEMORIAL 2024 Report
The 19th BOBBY GOW MEMORIAL 2024
Mon 30th Sept 24 – 8:00pm
Dundee Chess Club Dundee (1427) 10½ – 14½ (1487) Castlehill Chess Club
Oh, what a night at Dundee Chess Club, who hosted the 19th Bobby Gow Memorial 2024.
We had a record breaking 25 boards, which was outstanding when you consider most competitions numbers dwindle over time. Dundee had to scramble setting more boards to their already impressive set-up! Due to the surge in numbers, and a lot of new faces, it delayed the start of the competition from 7:30pm to about 8pm. My apologies for this, but heavens above what a nice headache to have!
I would say both clubs deserve a lot of credit for this turnout and just shows how well chess is doing in the City of Dundee!
Congratulations to Castlehill Chess Club Dundee on retaining the Bobby Gow Memorial Cup for the 11th time in a row (Not counting two-year break for COVID). This is the 13th time Castlehill have won the Cup (Twice jointly; once with Dundee & Victoria CC & once with Dundee CC)!
This was an amazing effort by Castlehill and their captain, Club Secretary, Daniel Coleman. We had 24 players last year, but only 12 boards, and this year we had 25 players, with Dundee matching us this time for 25 boards!
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Overall, grading wise there was not much in it, but that does not tell the whole story! Dundee massively out graded Castlehill on the first 6 boards, both teams were evenly matched on the next 6 boards, but Castlehill had a massive grading advantage on the last 13 boards!
It ended up being a game of three halves, with the bottom half going Castlehill`s way 11-2, the middle section, going Dundee`s way 4½-1½ and the top half with Dundee`s players out grading Castlehill on all 6 boards by a big amount, went to Dundee 4-2.
While it is true our bottom order gave Castlehill a big advantage and must rightfully be credited with getting us the win, I must mention our top six players and give them a tremendous shout out and also credit them for giving Castlehill this victory. We were expected to lose the top 6 boards and instead we got two draws and a outstanding win by Jan Alfred Klingelhoefer (1713) on board 3 against Dundee legend, David Findlay (2064)! Iain Sneddon drew with Joshua Crofts and Euan Murray drew with Alastair Dawson!
This was just am amazing result, one for the record books!
Castlehill took an early lead through our bottom boards, and while Dundee started to close it, Castlehill just managed to keep the lead to the end, but only just!
There were a lot of very good and exciting games, especially by the less experienced players as well as the more seasoned of our players!
Dundee Chess Club once again had a lot of “NEW & UNGRADED” adult players, playing in their first big tournament! They did Dundee Chess Club proud and some showed a lot of promise for the future!
A big thank you to James Anderson for all the computer work and to Ray Flood and the rest of Dundee Chess Club for making it a night to remember and being great hosts as always!
Of course without you the players from both chess clubs, there would be no competition and boy did both clubs do us proud at the 19th Bobby Gow Memorial! Thank you all, it makes it all worthwhile.
That`s it for another year and we will meet again at Castlehill Chess Club (Thursday) in Sept 25.
Let`s try again to break records with 25+ board!
Bobby Gow would have been proud of us all!
For all the results and history, click the link below. Also included is a blog by our own Alisdair MacLeod