Dragons A played host to Edinburgh 1 at Clark's Bar in the Edinburgh Premier league and you could hear a pin drop.

Once again, one of the two small rooms that had been promised for our "exclusive use" was double-booked for a debating society. The compromise this time was that we would squeeze 4 boards into one room and 2 boards would have to play out in the open bar area. As it was a quiet Tuesday night, this actually turned out fine. The barman kindly muted the TVs and by the time the games were finishing all the other customers had departed leaving only the barman, chess players and complete silence. Never have I witnessed such a deathly quiet bar, it was a bit surreal.

Not unexpectedly, as we were somewhat outgunned on boards 2-4, the match did not go our way. After all, they had Neil Berry, the 2015 Scottish Champion on board 3, and he won a nice game against Elliot. Don (pictured) was the only one of us to have any winning chances and he managed to bring the full point home in a long game (the last to finish) after an instructive error by his opponent in a R+P v R ending. If you don't know whether the defending king should flee to the short side or the long side, check out the game. Our two draws were the result of some sterling defence by Ewan and Mark.