Herbert Scarry has contributed yet more information on the 1994 Irish championship, for which many thanks. The new material includes the tournament brochure, the flyer, and a supplemental report in the October 1994 issue of the Irish Chess Journal.
As chief arbiter, Herbert clarifies that Ray Devenney and John Nicholson definitely both withdrew before the final round.
The supplemental ICJ report had annotations of three games, all involving Colm Daly. Richard O’Donovan’s annotation of his very interesting game against Colm was previously available in the ICU games archive and was included in the previous version of the tournament report, but Colm’s annotations of his games against Conor O’Shaughnessy and Tom Clarke were new to me, and have been included in the revised report.
Colm remarks that “not winning this game was a big blow; it felt more like a loss than a draw”.
101. ?
Colm’s notes give his next move 101. Kf3 a “??”, with the remark “Move 101 turns out to be the decisive blunder! The way to win was 101. Nxh5 Kg4 102. Ng7 Kxh4 103. f5 Kg5 104. Kd4 Kf4 (104… f6 105. e6) 105. f6 Bb3 (only move) 106. e6 fxe6 107. Kc3! (107. f7 e5+) 107… Ba2 108. f7. After the move played it is just a draw.”
Actually, though, it’s a draw anyway. I’ll leave this as an exercise: where can Black improve on this analysis and save the game?
[Click to replay the full game.]
The full report has been updated. Many thanks again to Herbert for all the additional information.