A hard 2024/25 season in Division 1 saw the Dragons second team fighting for the title but only getting second place.
We lost out in the promotion battle and remain in Division 1.
We normally do well in this division but some of our strength is required in the Premier Division.

All 1st division results are here while grading calculations are here.

Edinburgh West 2 (away, Oct 29)

Another great team performance away to Edinburgh West 2.
Edinburgh West have attracted and enabled a number of promising juniors, to their credit.
This means a heavily weighted junior was always going to be tricky, since their grades are often misleading.

Ewan got another opening prediction correct! Richard K. had to face a Scandinavian (defence) and pulled off a very fine win.
Ewan secured a draw against another of their promising youngsters who he lost to at the January Allegro.
In Richard C's game, he seemed to have the winning chances but his opponent made the most of counterplay on the queen side and eventually won.
Jim got a weaker position from the opening but equalised with a tactical ploy to even it up.
In the simplified position, Jim set up a series of tactical options which combined gave Jim the advantage.
Although there was a slight advantage, Jim's opponent over estimated it and resigned.
Don won a very good game where his opponent seemed to have an attack on Don's king on the king side.
However, most of the opponent's pieces were cramped in the centre and on the queen side.
Don prevailed on the king side with some excellent tactical ploys.
On 6, Chris fought hard to get into an opposite bishops position. Although his opponent had the upper hand,
there was no clear path to victory.
Eventually the position simplified to a drawn rook ending. Great resilience from Chris.

Pentland Hills 1 (home, 21 Oct)

This was a close match, but it was good to win our initial match against Pentland Hills. We were 1½-2½ down with two games left, both endgames and both possibly drawing.

Many thanks to Alan for appearing on board one and getting a valuable draw.

Ewan managed to get an opponents opening prediction correct and Brendan played the French against Richard K. Richard K played some wonderful attacking moves but faltered, the victory was settled as Brendan was low in time and fell to a tactical combination in the end-game.

Ewan also got Ian's opening correct but had to swindle, and then grind, a victory but it was most welcome. Don got our third victory with a very neat finish to ensure he obtained pawn promotion.

Richard C's game looked wild in the opening and became rather symmetrical with both sides attacking on the king side, Richard had good winning chances but blundered.

Jim went for a tactical sacrifice, which was pretty effective apart from a move order switch, which left the sacrifice on but the queens off. This was too much of a material loss to overcome without any compensation.