The second Drogheda Super Rapid KlimaX event was held on December 27 and 28. As the organisers note, this is Ireland’s only multi-day rapid event. It attracted a field of 70 players, slightly down on last year’s total, who contested 454 games over 15 rounds.
A full report has been added to the Tournament pages here. There were 20 live boards, though because of some of the inevitable glitches, only 284 games are available, and several of those appeared to be incomplete.
This year’s event attracted a strong field, including four Irish champions, but the runaway winner once again was FM Oleg Artemenko, who finished with an undefeated 13½/15, exactly as he did last year, to finish a full point and a half clear of the field, again matching his margin from last year’s event. The “Uzbek Juggernaut”, as the organisers’ report called him, won a first prize of €700. He was followed by Tarun Kanyamarala (12/15), Jason Liu (11½), David Fitzsimons (11), and Kavin Venkatesan (10½).
As was the case for last year’s event, I confess I played through only a small fraction of the games. Here is one interesting moment from one of Artemenko’s three dropped half points.
Drogheda Super Rapid 2K25 KlimaX 2025 (5.1)
28. ?
Here 28. Nb3! leaves Black helpless in the face of the simple threat of f7+ followed by Qd3+.
Artemenko instead played 28. f7+?. After 28… Qxb2 29. fxe8=Q+ Bxe8, queens were quickly exchanged, and although the black pawn on b7 dropped, White was left with an awkward rook and two minor pieces versus three minor pieces ending, with only two pawns each. Is this winning? It seems far from clear-cut. In the game, White’s advantage steadily dissipated.