Following up on the last two posts, a full report on the Irish Championship 1949 has been added to the tournament sections here, including all 7 of Paddy Kennedy’s games. These games and the two in the previous posts make up all of his games that are known.
Noel Mulcahy later described Kennedy’s play as characterised by its “logic”, and I think he may have meant that the games don’t fit any one style: some, such as the wins against Warwick Nash and John C. Hickey, were positional wins, whereas others, such as the games against Denis Jackson and J. A. Flood, were complicated, double-edged games; whatever the situation demanded, you might say.
30. ?
The game against Flood, the Ulster champion, is the most interesting. Flood was much better out of the opening, but Kennedy developed strong attacking chances. After some missed opportunities, the attack had almost petered out, before Flood erred one move before the diagrammed position to let Kennedy capture the pawn on e6.
The diagrammed position is objectively equal, but treacherous for White. With the time control coming up (the tournament used a strange rate of 34 moves in two hours), Flood now erred with the natural 30. Qf2+? and was irretrievably lost. After 30… Kb7 31. Re1 Qc6+, the point is that 32. Qg2 is met by 32… Bxb4!, e.g. 33. cxb4 Rxf4! 34. gxf4 d2, winning. Flood instead tried 32. Kg1, but 32… Bd8 left him helpless against 33… Bb6, and he resigned a few moves later.