When I posted an initial report on the 1978 Irish championship here last year, I noted that there was one game that was known to survive, but was nevertheless missing: an annotation by John Griffin of one of his games, which appeared in CHESS in October 1980. My access to this was limited to a brief search engine ‘snippet’, so I did not even know who his opponent was.
David McAlister has very kindly provided the relevant pages, for which many thanks. In them, John annotates a fine win against the Czech IM Krzysztof Pytel, and also his win against Liam Porter from that Irish championship.
Position after 25… ?
From the diagrammed position, he continued 25… Bf5!, and after 26. Qxa8 (others also lose), 26… Bxd3+ 27. Ka1 Nb4. Now 28. Qxa7 and 28. Nc1 both lose, but Liam Porter’s choice was even quicker: 28. a3 Qb3 29. axb4 Qa4 mate.
[Click to replay the full game.]
I have updated the report to include this game. I’m not fully sure what round it appeared in—it must have been either round 2 or round 4—but I have been able to fill in many more details from the event via the full ICU rating list for May 1978, which was part of a huge trove of material I have acquired from John Gibson, for which many thanks. With all the ICU ratings, it is possible to reconstruct the full first round draw. Because of adjournments, it is difficult to carry this on beyond the first round, and there are still some unknowns among pairings and results from the first few rounds.
See the revised full report.
John finished equal third, with 5½/9, in what turned out to be his only Irish championship.
This game was played in Round 2.
I will on a full cross table soon.