The DCU Congress 2026 took place at DCU St. Patrick’s campus in Drumcondra, from February 20-22. The event comprised three sections, Open, Majors, and Challengers, and also, on the Saturday, the Leinster Open Go tournament.
Full tournament reports for each (chess!) section have been uploaded to the Tournament pages here.
The Open attracted 47 players, and resulted in another first place for FM Oleg Artemenko on 4½/5, half a point ahead of David Fitzsimons and Oisín O’Cuilleanáin.
The Majors (rating 1650-1900) attracted 40 players. Cahit Furkan Sallan of Blanchardstown C.C. took first place with a perfect 5/5.
The Challengers (rating < 1650) attracted 91 players, and ended in a three-way tie between Jayden Amrolan, Eoin Dunne, and Alexandros Sykaras.
In the Open, David Fitzsimons had a complex task in his fourth round game against organiser (and highly ranked Go player, if I am interpreting it correctly) Emmet O’Rourke.
Position after 69… Bxe5
Winning the pawn on b4 will lead to a king, bishop, and wrong-coloured rook pawn versus king, so Black’s task is to manoeuvre to force White’s king far enough away from a1 before making the capture. This turns out to be tricky, but possible: the new Lichess Op1 tablebase shows that this is won for Black with best play.
As it happened, both players erred in the sequel: David missed an early chance to capture on b4, and Emmet missed three chances to draw with a timely b5 break. Emmet made the last mistake, and eventually resigned on the 112th move.