The City of Belfast Championships 2022 were held in June at the Maynard Sinclair Pavilion at Stormont. Usually there are two separate events for the Nemtzov Cup and the Henderson Cup, but in this case the two were combined into one event, which had 24 players.
Damien Lavery, co-organiser, did an outstanding job in making all games available immediately after the championship, along with 69 photos, and David McAlister compiled an equally prompt tournament report. The long delay since then is entirely my responsibility; apologies to Damien and David.
A full report has (finally) been posted to the tournament pages here. The photos can be viewed in a slideshow (warning: 84 MB).
The mix of playing strengths produced some interesting chess. The round 2 game between John Monaghan and Desmond Moreland reached the first diagrammed position:
27. ?
Here White enterprisingly went forward with 27. Kc3 (27. Ke1 wins), and after 27… Qa5+ 28. Kc2 Qa4+ 29. Kc3? Ne4+ had to go forward again with 30. Kd4. Black now had more than one way to win, but after 30… c3+ 31. Qc4 Qd7+ 32. Qd5 Qa4+ 33. Qc4, the game ended in perpetual check.
[Click to replay the full game.]
The most crucial game in deciding the destiny of the Nemtzov Cup was the defeat of the top seed Modestas Razbadauskas by Adam Rushe. The second diagram shows a critical point in the game.
26. ?
White now played the utterly natural 26. b4, but, very strangely, engines think this is an error that hands the advantage over to Black. I must admit that I do not understand the engine’s alternative suggestion here. The reader is invited to think about how White should proceed.