IRLchess

The last round of the Leinster leagues took place on Sunday. Congratulations to Knights of Éanna / Rathmines for an emphatic win in the Armstrong Cup, their first as a merged club. The Armstrong Cup page here has been updated.

Malahide had an excellent year and finished second; I’m not immediately sure if they have ever finished so high. Going into the last day, they had quite a reasonable chance of getting into a playoff with Knights of Éanna / Rathmines, because the margin between the teams was affected by many walkovers. My calculations indicated that if Malahide needed to score 1½ points more on the last day to force a playoff.

In the event, Knights of Éanna / Rathmines had a comfortable 5½ – 2½ win against the relegated St. Benildus B, while Malahide were beaten by defending champions Dublin by the same margin.

Board 3 in the Dublin – Malahide match featured a spectacular queen sacrifice and king hunt, one of the best I have seen in quite some time, which Jonathan O’Connor posted on X on Tuesday.

Corte Real Neto – Brozynski, Armstrong Cup 2024-25
Dublin – Malahide (3)
White to play

In the diagrammed position, Cyro Corte Real Neto, for Dublin, played the thunderbolt Qxe6!!??. Patryk Brozynski did not see a mate and captured the queen quickly. I’ll leave this as an exercise: how should play continue?

[Click to replay the game.]

Jonathan also posted his own game from the same match, on board 1 versus Shane Melaugh, on X, and he analysed it thoroughly with Mark Quinn on Mark’s Twitch channel earlier this week: see video. The game was entertaining, and the video was very instructive and worthwhile.

[Click to replay O’Connor – Melaugh.]

Gerard MacElligott has sent another interesting game, for which many thanks, played last Saturday in the Armstrong Cup. In the diagrammed position, it’s White to play and draw.

MacElligott – Kennedy, Armstrong Cup 2024-25
White to play and draw

The solution is, of course, that he claimed a draw under the 50 move rule: the last capture had occurred 54 moves earlier. (A similar outcome happened recently in the World Rapid Championship in a game between Alexander Donchenko and Hikaru Nakamura.)

[Click to replay the full game.]

Earlier, Gerard had held an advantage, and was pressing. It looked promising enough at times, for example around move 63, but I did not find any clear-cut win. Does anyone have suggestions?

A blunder at move 75 dropped a piece. Kennedy could have reached a bishop plus knight versus lone king ending 16 moves before it appeared; as the players must have been surviving on increments, it seems likely that he was building up a time reserve.

After the last capture, the Nalimov tablebase shows that Black mates in 27 moves with best play. So what went wrong? Following the sequel with the tablebase, it took far too much time to shepherd the white king into the ‘wrong’ corner: 31 moves, leaving 17 more required with best play. As it was, Kennedy almost immediately lost five moves through an inaccuracy, but later got a reprieve of 11 moves, restoring the win with best play. There was almost no margin for error, and he was unable to thread the required needle.

Dublin won the match 7-1, and the loss puts Elm Mount in danger of relegation (see table as of today). The half point saved might turn out to be very important!

Oliver Dunne has sent an interesting game, for which many thanks, from this year’s Heidenfeld Trophy.

This is from the penultimate round match between Phibsboro and the runaway leaders Dún Laoghaire, played on March 24.

Dunne – Beryozkin, Heidenfeld Trophy 2024-25
17. ?

The diagrammed position looks overwhelming for White, given the difference in development and space, but I was surprised when I looked at the engine evaluation, which was a relatively modest +0.6 to +0.8.

Oliver found the best continuation, 17. Nd6!. After 17… exd6 18. exd6 Rxe1+ 19. Rxe1 Qxd6 20. Re8+ Bf8, best is apparently 21. Bxd8, with advantage.

Oliver instead played 21. Be7?. Black could have turned the tables with 21… Qxe7, when he has rook, knight, and bishop for the queen and a winning position.

Instead he erred with 21… Qxd3?, and after 22. Bxf8! had to resign, as the threat of immediate mate leads to massive material losses.

[Click to replay the full game.]

From an Armstrong Cup game played on Wednesday:

Jonathan O’Connor, on X, remarked that “My opponent went downhill very quickly after forgetting his Sveshnikov theory”. This happened around ten moves before the diagrammed position.

Beatty – O’Connor, Armstrong Cup 2024-25 (8.3)
Position after 21… Qe3

White now continued 22. Kh3, and the conclusion was 22… Rc4 23. Bxc4 Bc8+ 24. Kh4 Qh6+ 25. Kg3 Ne4+ 26. fxe4 Qf4 mate.

[Click to replay the full game.]