Author Archives: Sean Coffey

The Sligo Spring Tournament 2022—II

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 … Continue reading

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The Sligo Spring Tournament 2022

I have not traced the full history of chess in Sligo—I’d be interested if anyone can shed light on this—but it goes back at least as far as 1912, when the Leinster Express announced a 10-board correspondence match between Queen’s … Continue reading

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O’Hanlon – Seitz, British Championship Major Open B 1938

The last post commented that new games from long-ago events appear all the time. Here is another example, which has also surfaced this month, and which also involves John O’Hanlon. This one is from a subsidiary event of the British … Continue reading

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A Lively Skirmish: O’Hanlon – Scott, British Championship 1921

One of the interesting aspects of chess history is that missing games from long-ago events turn up out of the blue, rediscovered in some out-of-the-way publication. One such game appeared this very month, discovered by “Tabanus” at chessgames.com and relayed … Continue reading

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The John Bolger Cup 2022

The inaugural John Bolger Cup was held at Coláiste Éanna in Rathfarnham, Co. Dublin, from March 25-27. The event attracted 154 players across three sections. All games for the Masters section were broadcast via live boards, and a full report … Continue reading

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Gibson – Doyle, Leinster Championship 1980

Among the many tributes that poured in for John Gibson was one at the Irish Go Association web site, which features a very nice recent photo: The photo’s metadata indicates that it was taken on February 29, 2020. The last … Continue reading

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FIDE ratings

The FIDE ratings page here shows the highest FIDE ratings achieved by Irish players, ranked in descending order. The list had not been updated since the November 2020 FIDE list came out, initially because there was almost no chess activity … Continue reading

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Van Manen – Gibson, Harrachov 1967—II

The last post gave one of John Gibson’s wins from Harrachov 1967, against the Dutch player Gerben van Manen. Curiously, his other win from the event came against the same player, also as Black, in the preliminary rounds. Though the … Continue reading

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Van Manen – Gibson, Harrachov 1967

In 1967, Ireland sent a team to the World Student Team Championship, or “Student Olympiad”, in Harrachov, Czechoslovakia. As described here ten years ago, the Student Olympiads were very strong events, with far fewer weak teams than in Olympiads, and … Continue reading

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John Gibson 1948-2022

I was very sorry indeed to hear of the passing of John Gibson, announced on RIP.ie and the ICU web site. I saw him in September, when he seemed in excellent form in all ways. He was interesting and entertaining, … Continue reading

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