A report has (at long last) been added here on the Irish Championship 2018. Jim Olney described the field as “the strongest for some years” in the Irish Examiner, but really he could have said “ever”, with 8 former champions, including the defending joint champions, 4 out of the 5 Olympiad team members, and 11 players rated over 2300 FIDE.
Alex Lopez romped home to clinch his third title in his first three Irish championships, with 1½ points to spare over the field, with David Murray recording his first IM norm in sharing second place with Conor O’Donnell.
The selection of “Interesting games” on the Information page is always subjective, but when 33 games are so listed, it’s a sign that the chess was unusually interesting.
The Ulster Masters 2019 took place on November 23-24 in Bangor, with 34 players competing across two sections. The top section finished in a three-way tie between Gareth Annesley, Calum Leitch, and Danny Roberts. A full report has been added to the tournament section here.
There were several interesting games, but the most dramatic by far was the fourth-round encounter between Conor Spackman and Annesley. In the diagrammed position White has sacrificed a piece; how should he continue?
The Ulster Championship 2019 was held in the Europa Hotel over the August Bank Holiday weekend. The event was dominated by Daniil Zelenchuk, who started with five straight wins and had wrapped up clear first with a round to spare, for his first Ulster championship.
Going by ratings, this was a major surprise, as he was rated 9th out of 13 at the start of the event, over 400 points behind the top seed.
The event marked the return to the fray of many times former champion Keith Allen, who hadn’t played in this event since 1990. The photo below shows him in action in round 1 in his game against the eventual winner.
Zelenchuk – Allen and Horváth – Annesley, round 1
A full report has been added to the tournament pages here.
The Irish Women’s Championship took place in Buswells Hotel over the weekend. Ioana Miller won for the third consecutive year, winning all her games, also for the third consecutive year. And for the second consecutive year there were no draws among the 30 games played.
So much for the similarities; there were also significant differences. In particular this event was much stronger than last year’s, with the champion only barely the top seed over Trisha Kanyamarala. The critical game between these two saw the champion win with Black (game unfortunately not available).
17 of the 30 games are available, plus one fragment. These have been compiled into a report in the tournament section here.
The Irish Championship for 1977, held in Cork, attracted a field of 34 players. It was a very young field, in which 15 players were playing in their first championship, including future winners Philip Short, John Delaney, Eugene Curtin, and Paul Delaney, as well as Keith Allen, Tom Clarke, and Tim Harding.
The defending champion Bernard Kernan was not there—in fact he never played in any subsequent Irish championship either—and the path was open for a new winner. After four rounds Colm Barry and Eugene Curtin, both of whom played in the Glorney Cup later that month, were in the lead, having dropped only a half point against each other. By round 6, Alan Ludgate, co-champion in 1975, had taken a lead which he never subsequently relinquished, finishing with three draws for an undefeated 6½/9 and his second shared title.
The sensation of the event, though, was the performance of Ray Devenney, who beat Barry, Curtin, Paul Delaney, and Eamon Keogh to finish with 6½/9 and become joint champion. Devenney suffered his only setback in round 6 when, on 4/5, he lost to John Gibson in a game in which he stood much better. He bounced back in the next round with a critical win against Eamon Keogh.
Devenney – Keogh, Irish Championship 1977
26… ?
In this game it was Keogh who stood better earlier, before blundering a pawn. In the diagrammed position, it is still all to play for: after 26… Rf8 27. f4 Bh6 28. e3 Rae8 Black would have full compensation. Instead play continued 26… Re8 27. Qg4 Qe5? (27… Qh6!=) 28. Bf5 Qxe2? (28… Re7, with advantage to White) 29. Qh3 h6 30. Rxd6 Rad8 31. Rxh6+! with a decisive attack.
The third annual St. Andrew’s Charity Classic was held the weekend before last in Booterstown, Co. Dublin. The event attracted 130 players across 3 sections.
The Masters ended in a tie for first between Tarun Kanyamarala and Conor O’Donnell. A report (with all 42 games, via live boards) has been added to the Tournaments pages here.
A new page has been added here, listing Irish players in descending order of peak FIDE ratings, as published in official FIDE lists (and not accounting for intermediate or live ratings).
The page accounts for all FIDE lists up to and including September 2019, and will be updated as necessary every month.
[Update, September 17, 2019: the list has been modified to add John Redmond and John S. White.]
A new page has been added here on FIDE title norms achieved by Irish players (and by non-Irish players in events played in Ireland). The page also lists progress of Irish players towards titles.
Many thanks to John McMorrow, who pointed out several errors and omissions in an earlier draft of this page, as well as suggesting the idea for having such a page.
The City of Dublin Championships were held in Coláiste Éanna over the weekend, attracting 123 players over four sections.
In the Masters, Conor O’Donnell became champion for the first time, with 4½/5. Of the 32 games played, 29 were available on live boards, and they have been compiled into a report on the tournament pages here.
