A report on the Irish New Year GM Norm Event, which ran from January 2-6, has been added to the tournament section here. Full credit goes once again to the ICU for setting up a large number of events in challenging circumstances; the full selection included an IM Norm event, three restricted rating all-play-alls, and the Leinster Junior championships.
The GM Norm event produced one norm, a GM norm for the winner Vignir Vatnar Stefánsson (Iceland), his first. He will have fond memories of Ireland: his first IM norm was recorded in Dundalk in mid-2019.
The event was also notable for the return to play after a long absence of Paul Motwani (Scotland), who won the World Cadet (Under 17) Championship in 1978. I have an idea that we overlapped in Glorney Cups, though I don’t think I ever played him.
Peter Cafolla was rated 350+ points lower than all the other players, but got off the mark with a nice win against Conor Murphy in round 2, in an interesting ending.
67… ?
Murphy had been pressing earlier, but all of a sudden he was faced with a nasty predicament. In the diagrammed position, White threatens h7, Ra8, and h8=Q, and it is not easy to see how to stop this effectively. Any defence that results in exchanging rooks would allow the c-pawn to promote, and what else is there?
There is a way to draw: after 67… f4! (67… Rh2+ first comes to the same thing) 68. h7 Rh2+ 69. Ke1 (69. Ke3 d2 70. Rd6 Rxh6 makes it easy) Ke7 70. Ra8 f3! 71. h8=Q f2+ 72. Kf1 Rxh8, White is forced to take the draw with 72. Ra7+ and 73. Kxf2, since after 72. Rxh8?? d2, he actually loses.
Instead Murphy, down to his last couple of minutes, erred with 67… Kf7?, and after 68. Rd6? (68. h7! wins; for example, the former saving resource now fails after 68… f4 69. Ra8 Rh2+ 70. Ke1 f3 71. h8=Q f2+ 72. Kf1 Rxh8 73. Rxh8 d2, and with the black king on f7, White has 74. Rd8), erred again with 68… Kg8? (68… d2! draws, e.g. 69. Ke2 Rh2+ 70. Kd1 Ke7). After 69. Ke3 Rc4 70. c6, White was in control and duly chalked up the full point.