Monthly Archives: June 2011

To take or not to take?

Administrative note: reformatted, 6th August 2012. The previous version had become corrupted, and apart from that was hard to maintain and not compatible with all browsers.

Loughran-O'Leary, Irish championship 2009A puzzle from the 2009 Irish championship:
Black now played 21 … Nxe4!? How do you evaluate this move and the resulting position with best play?

A. Black wins back a pawn with equality;
B. White regains the pawn and simplifies to a better ending;
C. Black’s concept is flawed and White has a quick forced win.

See the solution. Continue reading

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T.G. Cranston: Correcting and improving the record

The first port of call to seek out biographical details about any chess player is Jeremy Gaige’s Chess Personalia. The entry for T. G. Cranston is brief, telling us only that he was born in Dublin circa 1877 and was Irish champion … Continue reading

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John Francis O’Donovan

The 1939 International Team tournament (or Olympiad as it is now called) was played in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Ireland was represented by John O’Hanlon, John O’Donovan, Gerard Kerlin, William Minnis and Warwick Nash. During the competition war broke out in … Continue reading

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Irish championship 2010

The 2011 Irish championship begins two weeks from tomorrow. To whet the appetite, we have a report on last year’s championship (1st Alex Lopez) on the Irish championships page.

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IRLchess

Eh… what … is this on? Er … SCCCCCRRRRREEEEEEECHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Ah… After we figure this WordPress thing out, this site will cover Irish chess history & records. Watch this space!

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