| Sources |
| ICU web site |
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| Irish Chess Journal |
- Vol. 7, no. 6, January-February 1996 (1995 rating list)
- Vol. 8, issue 3, June-July 1996 pp. 22-23 (announcement)
- Vol. 8, issue 4, August-September 1996 pp. 16-20 (report); 1996 rating list in same issue
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| TWIC |
TWIC 92, item 12 (report by John Hurley, including leading scores) |
| Newspapers |
- The Examiner
- July 23, 1996 p. 78 (L22) (Jim Olney) (summary report, leading scores, score of O'Donovan - Daly, round 2, end of O'Brien - O'Shaughnessy, round 5 (as puzzle))
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- Sunday Independent
- July 21, 1996 p. 53 (17L) (Michael Hennigan) (summary report, annotation of McMahon - O'Donovan, round 5 and end of Brady - Daly, round 6)
- July 28, 1996 p. 50 (14L) (Michael Hennigan) (annotation of Daly - Hurley, round 3, end of Keogh - Clarke, round 8 (as puzzle))
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- Sunday Tribune
- June 30, 1996 p. 64 (M30) (John Hurley) (announcement, preview)
- July 14, 1996 p. 62 (M30) (John Hurley) (report to round 4; annotation of Heidenfeld - O'Donovan, round 3; portion of Ó Cinnéide - O'Connell, round 3 (as puzzle); summary results of Weekender)
- July 21, 1996 p. 64 (M30) (John Hurley) (final report, summary results of Irish Intermediate and Junior Championships)
- August 4, 1996 p. 64 (M30) (John Hurley) (annotation of Daly - Quinn, round 9)
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| Notes |
| Key |
In "Pairings & results", - "(age)" denotes the player's age on his or her birthday that year, regardless of whether that birthday fell before, during or after the event
- "x-ch" denotes former Irish champions
- "ol" denotes members of the Olympiad team (Yerevan 1996)
- "ch#" denotes the number of championships the player played in up to 1996, including this one
- "–" in rounds denotes bye
- "bh" denotes Buchholz score
In playable games, - "RR" denotes editorial comment
|
| Missing games |
- Fox - Palmer, round 5
- Cafolla - C. Brady, round 9
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| Incomplete games |
Ó Cinnéide - O'Connell, round 3 is definitely incomplete (a later stage of the game appeared in the Sunday Tribune). In addition, the game Keogh - Muntadas, round 1 is almost certainly incomplete (final position makes no sense in the light of the result, without a plausible explanation). The games O'Donovan - Ó Cinnéide, round 1 and Porter - O'Shaughnessy, round 1 may be incomplete (result makes no sense in light of final known position, but could be due to a loss on time or acceptance of a draw offer, respectively). |
| Tie-break |
- The ICU's notes to arbiters for 1994 specified the tie-break system for that year as a shared title if exactly two players tied, but automatic tie-breaks to produce a single winner in case of a tie bwteen three or more players. The automatic tie-breaker was as defined by the ICU 1990 tournament rules:
- "i. Buchholz Score: the sum of the final scores of the player's opponents;
- ii. Median Buchholz score: the sum of the final score of the player's opponents, excluding the highest and the lowest of these;
- iii. the individual results between the tied players, but only if they have both or all played each other;
- iv. the sum of opponent's ratings, excluding the lowest of these. If still tied, eliminate the rating of the next lowest rated opponent(s) until a decision is possible.
- In the determination of the Buchholz scores (a) and (b) above, each player's score is adjusted where applicable as follows: 1/2 point is awarded for each unplayed player game whether this is because of a bye, forfeit, or unplayed round because of the withdrawal of a participant. A player awarded a bye counts the bye as an opponent who has drawn his game in every round."
(cf. ICU Tournament Regulations, ICU web site, April 2010 [apparently unchanged since 1990] (via the Wayback Machine)). - Richard O'Donovan would have won on almost all of the usual systems (in particular Median Buchholz and Progressive / cumulative). (Direct Encounter (pre-2023 FIDE definition) would not apply, and Direct Encounter (FIDE 2023 definition) would not decide a winner.)
- Colm Daly commented many years later that "the first I heard of there even being such a practice about, for example, the tie break options that saw the 1996 Irish Championships title go to Richard O Donovan was soon after the last game was played. [Which was my win against Mark Quinn that saw me join Tom Clarke as the joint winners] Well needless to say while it turned out that Richard got the title and much later the trophy for that year I never regarded myself as any less the Irish Champion or any more the Irish Champion than Tom Clarke or Richard. The technical reality was that there was no advance notice given of such a policy and in any event I agreed that that there should be only one title holder" (Irish Championship, ulchess.com, June 24, 2013 (via the Wayback Machine)).
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| Sponsor |
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| Ratings |
- FIDE ratings are from the July 1996 list.
- ICU ratings are from the 1995 list, published in January-February 1996
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| Clubs |
Clubs are from the 1996 rating list in the Irish Chess Journal (vol. 8, issue 4, August-September 1996) |
| Errata |
Versions v1.0-v1.2 of this report gave an incorrect score for Palmer - Crichton, round 6. The incorrect version had 36... R5c7 (??) instead of 36... Rc2 as played, and it omitted White's last move (45. Kh2). Both the incorrect and correct versions can be found in the same file in the archives of John Hurley's CHESS IRELAND website: see "Recent Irish games (1996/97)", with the incorrect version indicated as deleted (both links via the Wayback Machine). |
| Versions |
- v1.0 (20 Dec 2018): first published version.
- v1.1 (20 Dec 2018): corrected broken link back to tournament from playable games; corrected version date (was given as 21 Dec 2018)
- v1.2 (26 Jan 2019): corrected typo in "Incomplete games", in Notes; added extra indexing information in playable game files
- v1.3 (31 Jan 2019): corrected significant errors in Palmer - Crichton, round 6; added light notes to Palmer - Crichton, round 6; added Errata item under Notes; changed dead link in Notes → Sponsor to a different link with the same information, and added link to RTÉ story
- v1.4 (2 Jan 2021): modified description of tie break method in Information → Tie break and Sources and notes → Notes → Tie break; changed dead links to versions from Wayback Machine; modified links to change to https version where possible and to eliminate redirects
- v1.5 (15 Sep 2024): added Organisers, Time control, Schedule, partial information on Prize fund, and Entry fee in Information → Basic data; added references to Irish Chess Journal report and rating lists in Sources and notes → Sources; modified notes to Heidenfeld - O'Donovan, round 3 slightly; added notes to Ryan - Heidenfeld, round 4, from Ryan's annotation in the Irish Chess Journal, with further editorial comments, and added to Annotations index; added Hurley's notes to Daly - Quinn, round 9; added O'Brien - Clarke, round 2, O'Donovan - Daly, round 2, Welsh - Ryan, round 2, Porter - O'Rourke, round 5, O'Donovan - Quinn, round 6, Palmer - Crichton, round 6, and Clarke - O'Donovan, round 7 to Annotations index; added note and modified evaluation in Ryan - Cafolla, round 8; added reference to Irish Chess Journal report and rating lists in Sources and notes → Sources; added clubs in Pairings & results; added ICU ratings in Pairings & results and playable games; added FM title for Heidenfeld; added spacing between score groups in Pairings & results; added description of tie-break used in Information → Basic data → Tie-break, added tie-break column in Pairings & results, and added detailed description in Sources and notes → Notes; modified link to Wolseley to version from Wayback Machine in Sources and notes → Notes → Sponsor; modified format to show direct link to "Sources and notes" page from every page, rather than having to go via Information → Basic data; added file irlch1996_tables.txt in directory; added xml directory and file irlch1996_tables.xml; added link to individual pgn file from playable games
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| Acknowlegements |
- Herbert Scarry provided helpful clarifications on the tie-break system.
- References to Irish Chess Journal material are all taken from the John Gibson archive.
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| Author |
Seán Coffey |