UPDATED: 18/08/24

The 19th Bobby Gow Memorial 2024
Monday 30th September 2024 – 7:15pm sign-in
Venue: Dundee Chess Club!

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The 18^th BOBBY GOW MEMORIAL 2023
Thurs 14^th Dec 23 – 7:30pm – Castlehill Chess Club Dundee

Castlehill Chess Club (1503) 9½ – 2½ (1150) Dundee Chess Club

Congratulations to Castlehill Chess Club Dundee on retaining the Bobby Gow Memorial Cup for the 10^th time in a row (Not counting two-year break for COVID). This is the 12^th time Castlehill have won the Cup (Twice jointly; once with Dundee & Victoria CC & once with Dundee CC)!

This was a rearranged fixture from September 23 after it was postponed due to unexpected venue issues at Castlehill Chess Club.

The earliest date to hold it was Thurs 14^th December 23, which made it a Festive Special event. Of course, we would have no idea if this would have any effect how many players could make it at this busy time!

With Castlehill Club Secretary, Daniel Coleman, enforcing a 3-line whip on members, Castlehill managed an amazing 24 players on the night, which was more than we were expecting given the time of year! Dundee was not so lucky with a few last-minute withdraws due to illness, work and of course Christmas, which limited their number to 12 players.

That did not stop it being a great night of chess with plenty atmosphere, and while the score-line was big, I think it was a little bit flattering as a few Castlehill players said they had a tough battle, but just edged it in the end.

Both clubs were missing some big players, but that did not stop it being a competitive night’s chess and one that all players enjoyed!

Dundee Chess Club also had a lot of “NEW & UNGRADED” adult and junior players, playing in their first big tournament! They did Dundee Chess Club proud and some showed a lot of promise for the future! The difference was simple, Castlehill had more seasoned and experienced players which gave them an edge on the night!

The result of the night went to Castlehill`s Andre Babin (1897) who with black, drew his match on top board against, Scottish Champion Ed Spencer (2132)! Way to go Andre!

Thank you, to Daniel Coleman who provided Mince Pies and Shortbread on the night! Thank you to Dundee Chess Club and it`s players, and to Castlehill Chess Club and it`s player for supporting us on the night! Also thank you to Castlehill CC for hosting the event.

That`s it for another year when Dundee Chess Club will host it in it`s usual slot in September 24!

Bobby Gow would have been proud of us all!

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The re-arranged 18th Bobby Gow Memorial will take place at Castlehill Chess Club Dundee, on Thursday 14th December 2023, 7:30pm.
A pre-Christmas Special!

The question is: Who will get the best present and who will get their “Claus” in first?

Put this date in your diary please!

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The 17^th BOBBY GOW MEMORIAL CUP 2022
Monday 19th September 2022 – 7:30pm – Host Club: Dundee Chess Club

RESULT
Dundee Chess Club 4 – 12 Castlehill Chess Club Dundee

Well what a night we had at Dundee Chess Club in the 17^th Bobby Gow Memorial Cup! This event has been the chess season curtain raiser for both clubs before we start our own club competitions and the TAFCA League!

It’s been two years since we last held this event due to the pandemic and to be honest I was not sure how it would go as some players from both clubs have been reluctant to play OTB chess just yet?

This competition is between Castlehill Chess Club Dundee and Dundee Chess Club (formally Dundee & Victoria Chess Club) and celebrates the life of the late Bobby Gow who was a member of both chess clubs and was one hell of a character to be sure!

I was overwhelmed and proud to see how many players turnout for this event. To have 16 players on each side was more than we could have expected and proved how much we have all missed playing chess OTB (Over the board)!

Before we started, I talked about Bobby Gow as most of the players present did not know who he is. It’s is  unbelievable that it’s 20 years since he died. I also mentioned the pandemic and the people we lost, one of which was Bobby’s best friend at the time Martin Chalmers who died due to COVID. I also thanked everybody for supporting us tonight given the funeral of her Majesty Queen Elizabeth ll which took place earlier today. With all of the above in mine we held a minutes silence before the match to remember those we have lost.

OTB chess at last and the night did not disappoint at all. The atmosphere was electric and you could visibly see the joy of those playing “REAL” competitive OTB chess again! The players were mixed on both sides, with experienced players and a lot of knew players playing their first ever competitive match. Dundee Chess Club field several players who were just learning this great game, but wanted to play regardless and I take my hat off to them for having the courage to take part! These are the players for the future and must always be encouraged and supported on their journey! They will be the life blood for the future.

 

As for the result, congratulations to Castlehill Chess Club who won 12 – 4 on the night and retained the title they have held for the last 8 years it has been played (Once jointly!). The score line is a little unfair and does not tell the whole story.

Dundee were top dogs grading wise on the top four boards, but did not have it all their own way until the end! (They won 4-0)! The rest of the boards, Castlehill had the grading advantage and the experience which showed. Having said that it is never easy to be the favourite as many a banana skin is ready to slip you up! Well played all players from both sides.

But while I was happy we won (I am of course Castlehill), the result paled into insignificants as the real winner was OTB chess on a fantastic, nights competitive chess. We can now say OTB competitive chess is back and boy it’s about time! I look forward to the forthcoming season with joy and enthusiasm!

I would like to thank host club, Dundee Chess Club and all there helpers for organising the event at their club. It’s a perfect place to play chess in and everybody always makes you feel welcome. I would also like to thank both club captains for their support and help on the night.

Daniel Coleman (Castlehill) was presented with the Bobby Gow Cup by James Anderson (Dundee).

But most of all I would like to thank you the players who supported us on the night. Without you it would not have been the success it turned out to be and I am humbled by your support of the Bobby Gow Memorial and the fantastic nights OTB chess we had!

Same again next year!

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Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the Bobby Gow Memorial dis not take place for season 2020 and 2021

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THE 16^th BOBBY GOW MEMORIAL 2019
Venue: Castlehill Dundee: Thurs 19th Sept 19

What a fantastic turnout from both chess clubs tonight at the Bobby Gow Memorial Cup held at Castlehill Chess Club Dundee last night (Thurs 19^th Sept 19).

Dundee Chess Club had 15 players, while the home team Castlehill Chess Club Dundee had 23 players. In all 19 matches took place with some Castlehill players moving over to Dundee to give everybody a match on the night! This is the best turnout out in a number of years and a big boost for everyone and chess in the city of Dundee.

Congratulations to Castlehill Chess Club Dundee on winning the Bobby Gow Memorial for the 7^th time in a row (one match joint winners with Dundee!).

 Keith Rose holding the Bobby Gow Memorial Cup!

Some great matches played and some good results on both sides, especially Declan Shafi who beat David Findlay, Andy Rowe beating James Anderson and Ray Noble beating Frank Stevenson for the first time ever in over 34 years of playing chess!

The match was a lot closer than the score line suggests but a great performance from Castlehill again and some great banter as well! Dundee as always were great company and put up a valiant effort as always, but this time they just could not match Castlehill.

A big thank you to both chess clubs and players for their support on the night and I hope everyone had a good time on the night!

We did Bobby Gow proud tonight!

We will do it all again next year with Dundee Chess Club being the home venue.

Until then it`s goodnight from me, and its goodnight from Castlehill!

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The 15th Bobby Gow Memorial 2018
Tuesday 18th September 2018; Dundee Chess Club; 7:30pm

Congratulations to Castlehill Chess Club, Dundee for retaining the Bobby Gow Memorial trophy in Dundee`s backyard.

Dundee CC 4½, Castlehill, Dundee CC 7½

This is the 6^th time in a row for Castlehill and well deserved! A big thank you to Dundee CC for hosting the Bobby Gow Memorial this year. They have a very good venue indeed for playing chess.

After five matches it was all square. Then it all changed as Castlehill`s Ray Noble give them the lead. Then Graham Atkins got a draw, Euan Dawson won on board 3 and Keith Rose on board 5 gave Castlehill an unassailable 3 point lead with 3 matches left. What a turnaround! So a draw was the least they would get.  But we were not settling for that! The honour of taking Castlehill over the winning line went to Paul Shafi on board 2 getting a draw against Alastair Dawson. Great effort Paul and brilliant effort Castlehill! The last two matches ended in hard fought draws.

Both chess clubs were missing some strong players for one reason or another but it make it more interesting as the middle order of both teams had a chance to be the hero’s for a change! Colin Young (1360) fresh from his good performance at the Inverness congress was one of our early lower order hero`s with a fine win. Mr consistent and a hard player to break down. Even both our old men proved you can play chess regardless of age with Roy Morris winning and Graham Atkins getting a draw! The sometimes overlooked and underestimated Norman Waugh even got into the action with a good draw!

Average grading was in Castlehill`s favour:

Dundee: 1476:   Castlehill: 1538

All matches were hard going and you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife!

No another note the Shafi`s had the honour and pleasure of being boards 1 & 2! Yes Declan was on board one against Dundee legend David Findlay, while Paul promoted to board 2 to avoid Alastair and Euan Dawson playing each other (Family!) took on Alastair and got a draw!

Speaking of Declan & Euan, etc, Castlehill have been blessed recently with an influx of junior talent and it all started off with a very small shy boy called Declan who has grown into a fantastic player and wonderful person to know. It`s also been a pleasure watching Euan Dawson grow up and turn into the player he is now. Makes me feel old and gray!

 

Once again thank you to Dundee Chess Club for hosting the Bobby Gow and making a match of it. As for the Castlehill team? I could not be more proud of you all. What a performance, a great team effort indeed.

Well that`s the 2018-19 season started off with a bang! The 16^th Bobby Gow Memorial will be at Castlehill on Thursday 19^th September 2019.

As always chess was the winner again! What a great game/sport to be involved with!

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The 14^th Bobby Gow Memorial 21/09/17

 

What a night again at Castlehill Chess Club Dundee as we had over 60 people down at the club. It was that busy, we ran out of tables and sets/clocks at one point which had an impact on the Bobby Gow Memorial.

Congratulations to Castlehill Chess Club Dundee on winning the Bobby Gow Memorial for the 6^th time in a row (one shared!), against Dundee Chess Club.
Castlehill won 11½, – 4½ with 16 boards in play.  We went 6 – 1 up with our two juniors Ramit & Rishabh kicking things off with both winning their matches against two Dundee juniors. Agnijo Banerjee (1453) lost to Ray Flood (1377), but it was a good start for us. Disappointedly Dundee defaulted top board with Ed Spencer not showing up, which left Declan not getting a game. Dundee did turn up with more players this time (thank you), but we still had many who did not get a game. The plan was to play gradable games towards the Bobby Gow, with Castlehill against Castlehill. Unfortunately due to the high turn out of juniors and possible new members, we did not have any tables left to do that. This left a few disappointed players as they wanted to take part in this great memorial event. Something to look at in the future, but a nice problem to have.  The organiser Ray Noble also did not get a game due to his grade being so low now. My how the mighty have fallen!

 

In the end the great start by Castlehill proved too much for Dundee to overcome. Their were a lot of close matches on the top boards. Sam Gregory (1818) had the honour of taking Castlehill over the winning line beating Joshua Croft (1817) on board 2. The best combination finish was by Andy Rowe (1574) against Robert Burnett (1475) on board 8. It was a beauty!  The last match to finish was on board 5 with Euan Dawson (1727) winning against John Kelly (1600) in a belter of a tight match.

 

A big thank you to all the players who supported the Bobby Gow Memorial tonight, especially the ones who turned up but did not get a game. A big thank you to Dundee Chess Club and their hard working organisers for pulling out all the stops in getting a good turn out from their side.

 

Once again this has proved to be one of the best tournament in our calendar, even with the few gremlins that hit us tonight.

 

So once again congratulations to Castlehill for becoming the Bobby Gow Memorial champions 2017! Hip, hip, hoary!

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THE 13^th BOBBY GOW MEMORIAL 2016

Tuesday 20^th September: Venue: Dundee Chess Club

It`s hard to believe that this memorial is already in it`s 13^th year! This year it was Dundee Chess Clubs turn to be hosts and what hosts they were to laying on some food and drink and a warm welcome as usual!

Castlehill are the defending champions and have been on a fine run in this event recently and are hoping to keep it going. Dundee had 10 players on the night and a much weaker side grading wise than normal. They were missing some key players on the top and middle grade range. Castlehill on the other hand had 15 players for this event. The average grade for both teams were;

Dundee 1470 & Castlehill 1619

Dundee won the toss and took white on top board! On paper the first 5 boards were evenly matched, but the bottom 5 boards were strongly in favour of Castlehill. Castlehill also had 3 juniors in their side; 13;15 & 16 years old.

BATTLE STATIONS!

20:28hrs
BOARD 7:First to finish was the match between Castlehill`s very experienced Fergus Milne (1565) and Dundee’s new boy Luis Alcada (1200e) .Castlehill got first blood and there defence off to a good start as Fergus proved to strong for Luis despite his long lay-off after an accident.

Dundee 0, Castlehill 1

20:37hrs
BOARD 8: Martin Chalmers (1517) made it two nil with a comfortable win against Jean Chalmers (1119). This was a battle neither player wanted but fate dictated would happen! Martin was Bobby`s best mate when he was alive and this competition always means a lot to him.

Dundee 0, Castlehill 2

21:12hrs
BOARD 5: Castlehill were on a roll as Ben Volland J13 (1626) won this tricky tie against Robert Burnett (1440). While on paper Ben should win, Robert has this knack of pulling something out of the bag! Great start for Castlehill! Ben has come on leaps and bounds over the last year or two and is a great addition to the Castlehill ranks, and indeed the Dundee City teams in the SNCL!

Dundee 0, Castlehill 3

21:22hrs
BOARD 10: Ray Noble (1448) put Castlehill in a very strong position after beating Scott McKenzie (ug). With Ray’s experience it was always going to be an up hill struggle for ungraded Scott who unfortunately made a tactical error on move two and faced an up hill struggle from then on. Mind you Ray has been known to blow hot or cold at times. But not this time!

Dundee 0, Castlehill 4

21:29hrs
BOARD 9: Roy Morris (1486), played well to be a pawn up against Andrew Morrison (1077). Andrew also had a doubled pawn to boot! But somehow during a set of exchanges, Roy found himself in what looked like a lost endgame with his King on the back rank, but Andrews King had advanced to his 4^th rank! You could see and feel Roy`s bewilderment and frustration at this turn of events. Indeed it was looking like Roy was going to resign for a moment. Thankfully he did not, and as happens with lower graded players, Andrew did not grasp the position fully and moved his King the wrong way to give the advantage back to Roy, who played his “GET OUT OF JAIL” card (This is chess Roy, not Monopoly!) and this time finished it off! That win gave Castlehill an unbelievable 5-0 flyer and guaranteed them at least the draw.

Dundee 0, Castlehill 5

21:48hrs
BOARD 2: Alastair Dawson (1807) finally got Dundee off the mark and ended the possibility of a whitewash with a good win against Castlehill new boy Sam Gregory (1759). Sam has not played serious chess in about four years but was a former Scotland under 17 junior player! He is a bit rusty and came up against the very experienced professor! Sam is part of our very successful day at the Dundee University’s Freshers Fair which Castlehill had a stall at! I think we shall be hearing more from Sam in due course! Alistair’s win give Dundee the hope of pulling off a remarkable come back to tie the match. Boy would that be come back to tell the weans!

Dundee 1, Castlehill 5

22:07hrs
BOARD 1: The smiling assassin, Declan Shafi J16(1886) got the honour of pushing Castlehill over the winning line with a fine performance against Alan Borwell (1907). This meant Castlehill with 3 matches to go have retained the Bobby Gow Memorial Trophy! It is fitting that Declan should be the player that gets us the title after the season he had last year. What a player he has become and we at Castlehill are so proud of him as is his mum & dad! Well done Declan!

Dundee 1. Castlehill 6

22:23hrs
BOARD 3: Paul Shafi (1657) & Jim Anderson (1669) fought out a hard draw with both players not giving an inch over then board. Jim’s half point while not enough to change the outcome of the match, was a good ½ point none the less. Paul made sure that the “Shafi family” are unbeaten this year in the Bobby Gow!

Dundee 1½, Castlehill 6½

22:46hrs
BOARD 6: What a match this was between our own Euan Dawson J15 (1599) and Dundee`s Alan R. Woodcock (1370). Euan took his time and seemed to have the upper hand, indeed a winning position, with his only problem being his time? Alan on the other hand was playing better than his published grade and was putting obstacles in Euan`s way and making him work hard if he was going to win. Near the end of the match, Alan had created a dangerous mating net around Euan`s King, but Euan was on the verge of promoting a pawn. In the end it all seemed to come down to Euan`s lack of time. Working it all out is a good quality, but even then one awkward or unexpected move by your opponent can throw you a little and then time has a habit of biting you in the bum! This is exactly what happened in the end and Euan lost on time. It would have hurt Euan not only grading wise but personally after all his hard work, but you have to give credit to Alan for the way he kept in there despite all the pressure he was under! He certainly played above his currant grade and may be it was a case of turning back the hands of time for Alan! Euan I know will learn from this and become a stronger player for it. You can fight most things in life and chess, but you can never beat time unless you are a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey… Euan?

Dundee 2½, Castlehill 6½

22:47hrs
BOARD 4: Last but not least was the match between old rivals. Keith “The Legend” Rose (1654) and Frank Stevenson (1644). They have been battling each other for so long over the years, you could call it a “Time War!” What a match they both served up. Full of complications, with both players living on a knife edge! One false move and you are a goner. Keith with a passed pawn seemed ready to sacrifice his queen, but gain a replacement! Frank putting a spoke in this plan and converging on Keith`s King and Queen! It will be one worth going over, but in the end Keith managed to find the answers and finally over come the strong resistance of Frank. Frank should have known that against the Castlehill legend, “Resistance is Futile. Species Frank Stevenson will be assimilated!”

Dundee 2½, Castlehill 7½

Congratulations to Castlehill on retaining the Boby Gow Memorial in style! Dundee put up a good fight, but were missing some of their top players on the night due to things out with their control. Castlehill did well to muster 15 players as a Tuesday night is a problematic night for a lot of our players.

Well played everyone that took part and showed their support for this event. Everyone enjoyed the night and Bobby Gow would have been a proud man watching this.

See you all next year at Castlehill!