We have previously mentioned on a number of occasions John Saunders’ outstanding Britbase website. During some recent research, John came across an important annotated Irish Championship game and kindly sent it to me, while also pointing out that elsewhere a photograph existed of the players during the game.
Both the game and the photograph appear further below, but before and after, there will be some context with particular attention to J.J. O’Hanlon’s journey to his ninth and final Irish title.
The 1940 Irish Championship was held in July at the Dublin Chess Club, 20 Lincoln Place. The tournament had a tight schedule:
Monday 15th: Rounds 1 and 2
Tuesday 16th: Rounds 3 and 4
Wednesday 17th: Adjourned games and Round 5
Thursday 18th: Rounds 6 and 7
Friday 19th: The remaining Adjournments
Originally Rounds 8 and 9 would have been on the Friday, but the two Ulster nominees, A.L. Davies and J.D. Peebles, were unable to travel, probably due to wartime restrictions and so only 7 Rounds were needed.
The daily sessions were from 9.30am to 1.30pm and 6.30pm to 10.30pm. Rate of play was 40 moves in the first two hours and thereafter 20 moves for each subsequent hour.
In Round 1 the Leinster champion Gerald Kerlin was a piece down to O’Hanlon after about 10 moves in a Queens Gambit Declined but recovered well by the end of the session and the game appears to have been agreed drawn without resumption.
In Round 3 O’Hanlon’s opponent Charles J. Barry was 45 minutes late and did well to to bring the game safely to an adjournment and an eventual draw.
Now, our featured game:
John J. O’Hanlon (White) – Austin Bourke (Black)
Round 4, Tuesday 16th July
Source: CHESS, September 1940, Volume 5 page 268
Annotations by O’Hanlon (JJOH) and the publisher/editor of CHESS, B.H. Wood (BHW)
J.J. O’Hanlon’s best game in the Irish Championship, according to himself. (BHW)
1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 a6
A Swedish variation which was tried a few times by Alekhine. In my opinion, the usual method of accepting the gambit is much superior. (JJOH)
4. e3 Bg4 5. Bxc4 e6
If 5… Nf6? 6. Bxf7+ Kxf7 7. Ne5+ and wins. Or even 6 Ne5 threatening mate. (BHW)
6. Qb3 b5
Black’s original idea was to reply to 6 Qb3 by 6… Nc6. If 7. Qxb7 7… Na5 wins a piece. But White can play 7. d5 and if 7… Na5 8. Qa4+ b5 9. Bxb5+ axb5 10. Qxg4 with a fine position (JJOH)
The best for Black is 6… Bxf3 (BHW)
7. Be2 Nd7 8. a4 b4 9. O-O Ngf6 10. Rd1 Be7 11. Nbd2 O-O 12. Nc4 Qc8
Black absolutely fails to see the strategical necessity of the position, which is to play 12… c5. Unless he gets in this move at once, challenging White’s centre, he is in grave danger of succumbing to pressure along the c-file. (BHW)
13. Bd2 a5 14. Rac1 Qb7 15. Be1 Bd6
Black is embarrassed to find a good move, but this gives White the opportunity to take possession of the c-file with advantage. (JJOH)
16. Qc2 Bf5
The only good defence was} 16… Rfc8. (JJOH)
17. Nxd6 cxd6 18. Qc7 Qb6 19. Rc6 Qxc7 20. Rxc7 Rfc8 21. Rdc1 Nb6 22. Bb5 Nfd5
Black has fought back well to neutralise the open file but is left with a fatal weakness – his queen’s side pawns are immobilised by the white bishop. (BHW)
23. Rxc8+ Rxc8 24. Rxc8+ Nxc8 25. Nd2 Nc7 26. Nc4
There is no defence against this, which wins pawn and game. (BHW)
26… Nxb5 27. axb5 Be4 28. f3 d5 29. Nxa5 Bd3 30. Bxb4 Bxb5 31. Bc5
Putting the black knight to sleep. (BHW)
Irish Independent 17/07/1940 page 10
31…f6 32. Kf2 Kf7 33. Ke1 Ke8 34. Kd2 Kd7 35. Kc3 g5 36. Kb4 Ba6 37. Ka4 Nd6 38. Bxd6
Eliminating the bishops on oppositely coloured squares. (BHW)
38… Kxd6 39. b4 Bc8 40. b5
Even stronger is 40. Kb5, preventing the black king getting to b6. (BHW)
40… Kc7 41. Nb3 Kb6 42. Nc5 1-0
42…Bd7 is prevented and the passed pawn, after 43 Kb4 and 44 Na4+, will resume an irresistible advance. (BHW)
Returning to the progress of the Championship – on Wednesday the contemporary reports suggest that the best performance of Round 5 was Sean French’s draw with O’Hanlon.
After a number of adjourned games were played off on the Wednesday evening, the standings after 5 Rounds were:
John O’Hanlon 4.0; John Casey 3.0; Gerald Kerlin 2.5; Austin Bourke 2.5: Taylor Vard 2.0; Charles Barry 2.0; Sean French 1.5; Warwick Nash 1.5.
At this point Vard and Nash had still not completed their Round 1 game.
Between them, the sixth and seventh Rounds produced only three completed games out of the eight played. The standings at the close of play on Thursday night (and awaiting the final adjournment sessions) were:
John O’Hanlon 4.0/5; Austin Bourke 4.0/7; John Casey 3.0/7; Gerald Kerlin 3.0/6; Charles Barry 3.0/6; Taylor Vard 2.0/4; Seán French 1.5/5; Warwick Nash 1.5/4.
Although Nash was sharing last place in the standings after close of play on Thursday he could still win the tournament – he had two adjourned games in his favour (against Vard and French) which he won on resumption in the Friday morning session. Vard had also entered the Friday action still in the running for first place but his loss to Nash and a further defeat by Barry ended his hopes.
Nash’s other adjourned game was his Round 7 encounter with O’Hanlon. Thereby hangs a tale. On the sea passage to the Buenos Aires Olympiad the previous year, the vastly experienced O’Hanlon had coached the team, including playing over the Grunfeld Defence several times with Nash. In their final round game, Nash put his learnings to the test! After 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 O’Hanlon responded with 4.Bf4 aiming to capture the Black c-pawn [For a later example of this variation in Nash’s praxis, see Mulcahy -v- Nash, Irish Championship 1953]. Nash was able to hold the game reasonably easily but it was eventually only enough for a draw, which was sufficient for O’Hanlon to secure the Championship.
However, O’Hanlon was not quite finished yet. After securing the title he still had to finish off his Round 6 adjourned game against Taylor Vard. The encounter had been an exciting struggle with admittedly its share of inaccuracies, with Vard making an excellent recovery after a bad mistake on his 30th move – and he had good winning chances when the time came for adjournment. O’Hanlon was unable to save the game on the Friday evening, and for this victory Vard was awarded a prize put up by former Irish champion, James Creevey, for the best game by a non-prize winner.
Final Crosstable
O B N K B C V F Total J.J. O'HANLON X 1 = = 1 1 0 = 4.5 A. BOURKE 0 X = = 1 1 = = 4.0 W. NASH = = X 0 1 0 1 1 4.0 G. KERLIN = = 1 X 0 0 1 1 4.0 C.J. BARRY 0 0 0 1 X 1 1 1 4.0 J. CASEY 0 0 1 1 0 X = = 3.0 T.A. VARD 1 = 0 0 0 = X 1 3.0 S.A. FRENCH = = 0 0 0 = 0 X 1.5