A report on the Sligo Spring Tournament Challengers 2022 has been added to the tournament pages here. The event attracted an impressive entry of 87 players, and after five rounds, two players were on full points: Dariy Kelbas (Ukraine) and Jason Liu.
Very unusually for the third section, many games are available: we have 41 of the 191 played, from a combination of live boards and pgn contributed by players, and relayed via chief organiser Craig DuBose, for which many thanks.
Once again, there was much interesting and enterprising chess. Here are three examples.
The most interesting game of all for me was Dineen – Adebowale, round 4. In the first diagram, Dineen has (correctly) sacrificed a bishop on g6, but has no immediately obvious way of pressing home the attack. How should White continue? Engines find two substantially different ways; I did not find either too evident. (See game for answers.) Later in the same game, Black erred in a king and five pawns versus king, bishop, and two pawns ending; again, the decisive error was not at all obvious.
In Campbell -Gallagher, round 3, the second diagram was reached after White’s 14th. In her live commentary on Twitch, Diana Mirza pointed out that after the simple 14… Nc6 15. Qb7 Qc8, Black wins quickly on material. Instead, Gallagher played the creative, though not entirely correct, 14… Nb3!??, threatening mate on the move. After 15. Nbd2 Rxa1, White could have played 16. Nxb3 and emerged with a worse but still playable game. Instead play continued 16. Bxd8 Nc1+ 17. Ke1 Nxd3+ 18. Ke2 Nc1+ 19. Ke1, and now Black could have had a quick mate via 19… Nb3+ (or 19… Na2+) 20. Ke2 Bc4+ and mate next move. Instead, after 19… Bxd8, the material balance of two rooks and two bishops versus queen was overwhelming, and Black duly converted, despite White dangling a stalemate trap near the end.
In Smikle – Campbell, round 2, for which there is a nice photo immediately before the game, the third diagram shows the position after 31. Rf6. Andrew Campbell’s annotation describes his next move 31… Rg8 as a blunder (a little harshly!). What is wrong with this move, and what should he have played instead? (See game for answers.)
[Update, May 9, 2022: a revised report has been uploaded, adding Edward Loane’s annotations of his round 4 and 5 games, for which many thanks.]