The Sligo Spring Tournament was held in Enniscrone from February 2-4, 2024.
The flyer gives testimonials from players (“the best tournament in Ireland at present”, “by far the most professional weekender I’ve been to”), and these seem no idle boasts. A video collage of this year’s event, compiled by player Vladimir Mabhena, conveys the atmosphere very well.
Chief organiser Craig DuBose was interviewed by Chessdom.com two weeks ago about his plans for the event going forward.
A full report on the Masters section has (finally) been uploaded to the Tournament pages here. Craig DuBose sent all games, in two different formats, very promptly after the event, and much additional information, so the delay is down to me. In fact, I was asked recently if I had posted a report, replied that I had, and was surprised to find out that I hadn’t.
An interesting ending occurred in the round 1 encounter between Oisín O’Cuilleanain and Sergey Beryozkin.
Position after 61… Rxg3
In the diagrammed position, chances are equal. Several moves later, the second diagrammed position was reached.
65… ?
Here 65… Rg5? turns out to lead to a losing ending after 66. Rf7+ Ke6 67. Rh7 Rxb5 68. Rxh4. Here Black can of course not play 67… Rh5?? because after 68. Rxh5 gxh5 the white king is too close to the black pawns.
The right way is 65… Rg3+!. Now after 66. Kc4 Rg5 67. Rf7+ Kc8 68. Rh7, Black can play 68… Rh5, when White must force a draw, while after 66. Ke4 Rxc3 67. Rxg6 a different R+2 vs. R+1 ending is reached, and this one turns out to be drawn with best play.
Instead Black played the natural but wrong 65… g5? and was lost after 66. Rh6. The game continued 66… Rg3+ 67. Kc4 h3 68. Rh7+ Kc8 and now White blundered with the disastrous 69. d5?? (69. b6 was winning), allowing 69… Rg4+ 70. Kc5 Rh5, winning.
[Click to replay the full game.]
The event resulted in a three-way tie for first between James Naughton, Oscar Culbeaux Tello, and Oleg Gubanov. For this event, as for some other recent Irish tournaments, tie-breaks were applied even for cash prizes, and Naughton finished first, with Culbeaux Tello second and Gubanov third, with very narrow margins separating each.