After their earlier defeat by Edinburgh 1 at noisy, cramped Clark's Bar, the A-Team took revenge by beating Edinburgh 2 at nice, spacious, quiet Pilrig Bowling Club.

Nicol (on the left in picture below), as black, slowly but surely equalised against ex-Dragon Raj Bhopal on board 1 and then slowly but surely ground him down in a rook and bishop ending, cleverly liquidating to a won king and pawn ending near the end and playing the nice move 48...g4!.

On board 2 Mark played the strange move 10.Kd2 in the opening which he thought was threatening to win a queen (with 11.Bb5+ and 12.Re1) and black felt obliged to give up a piece to avoid that. However, the threat was not real (black could have played 11...Kd8) and this bit of luck more or less decided the game in the Dragon's favour. Mark's Icelandic opponent Snorri, whose wife is expecting their first baby and who was allowed to keep his phone on in case she called, showed himself to be a perfect gentleman when he returned shortly after leaving the building to warn Mark that his car lights were still on.

The board 3 game was a wild affair where Neil (on the left in picture below) gave up his queen for a rook and minor piece. Probably white could have defended better, but the game was decided when Neil's rooks and dark squared bishop got amongst the white king.

Elliot swapped off queens early in his game against professor (of philosophy) Mike Ridge and agreed an early draw. He was perhaps not in the best frame of mind for a fight after earlier losing a battle against the lock on the equipment box which seemed to leave him in a bad mood, judging by all the cursing!

Don got into a horrible queenless middlegame (weak pawns, bad bishop, cramped position) but soldiered on grimly to reach a rook and pawn ending which he thinks he might have had chances to hold had his concentration not been broken. Both players had lost track of the moves in time trouble and the game was stopped to discuss whether the rules required the score sheets to be completed. The players, team captains and various spectators all got involved but eventually it was agreed to continue without a reconstruction as it would have taken a while and it was getting late.

Richard's opponent blundered a typical Bxh7+ combination in an exchange French and after that our man ruthlessly brought home the full point.