Irish Championship 2017

[ Information | Pairings & results | Crosstable | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th | Openings | Annotations | Sources ]

Sources and notes

Sources
FIDE records Tournament 160380
ICU web site
Chess24.com Irish Championship (70 games, with engine analysis; commentary) (dead link as of August 26, 2026)
Chess-Results.com Tournament results (pairings to round 8, results to round 7).
TWIC TWICs 1186 (news item and game collection (15 games)) and 1187 (report (final scores) and game collection (55 games)) (combined pgn file).

(The TWIC pgn file omits G. Melaugh - Quinn, round 4, and has a (probably spurious) extra ply 54... Ke5 in G. Melaugh - Li, round 1.)
Chess Today
  • CT-212 (6114), 2 August 2017 (Li - Baburin, round 3)
  • CT-214 (6116), 4 August 2017 (Tirziman - MacElligott, round 2)
  • CT-223 (6121), 11 August 2017 (leading places and scores, annotation of Daly - Lopez, round 8)
Newspapers
  • Sunday Independent, August 13, 2017 (summary report, annotation of end of Daly - Lopez, round 8)
Web
Facebook The Irish Chess Union Facebook page had brief updates, for example post, August 6, 2017 (Philip Short IM norm; photo)


Notes
Key In "Pairings & results",
  • "(age)" denotes the player's age on his or her birthday that year (regardless of whether that birthday fell before, during, or after the event)
  • "x-ch" denotes former Irish champions, via circled dot for defending champion, dot otherwise
  • "ol" denotes members of the previous Olympiad team (Baku 2016)
  • "ch#" denotes the number of championships the player played in, including this one
Débuts and final appearances Gavin Melaugh made his Irish championship début.
All players played in one or more later Irish championships.
Venue change The event was originally scheduled to take place at the Savoy Hotel in Limerick, but the ICU announced in March that it had to be moved as the hotel was closed for renovations during the championship time frame.
IM norm Philip Short's IM norm was the first ever earned in an Irish championship, but the norm was never submitted to FIDE, due to Philip's lack of interest in pursuing it.
Olympiad place The winner was guaranteed an automatic Olympiad place for the 2018 Olympiad.
Late change Paul Walsh withdrew on the Tuesday before the event and was replaced by Luke Scott.
Eligibility Under a motion passed at the 2014 AGM, a large number of players could be nominated without any required minimum rating: (1) 3 players by the ICU Executive; (2) 3 players, who must be under 18, by the Junior Officer; (3) 1 player by each Provinical Delegate; (4) 1 player by the tournament organisers. Under a second motion, also passed at the 2014 AGM, the Irish Women's Champion, Irish Veteran's Champion, Irish Intermediate Champion, and Irish Open champion were all eligible to play regardless of rating.
Tie-break The tie-break rules were not explicitly stated. A shared title in the case of a tie bwteen exactly two players was the practice in Irish championships from 1975 onwards.

In case of a tie between three or more players, the rules were unspecified in 2017; in years from 2011 onwards the rules were uncertain, and even when listed varied from year to year.

The last published rules for a three or more way tie were for the 2014 Irish championship (which had the same Chief Arbiter):
“Where two players tie for first place the title and prize money will be shared. Where 3 or more tie for first place the top two using Buchholz Meridian system (Hi-Lo) will share the title and all tied players will share the 1st., 2nd., 3rd., and 4th ( if advertised ) prizes equally.”. This was a change from the historic practice, in which tie-break would apply to determine a single champion.
Ratings
  • FIDE ratings are from the July 2017 list.
  • ICU ratings are from the July 2017 list.
Versions
  • v1.0 (7 Dec 2018): first published version.
  • v1.1 (8 Dec 2018): corrected link (Information → Concurrent events → Major); deleted incorrect item (Sources & Notes → Notes → Photos) (item was from report on 2016 Irish championship).
  • v1.2 (1 Feb 2019): added notes about dead links to Irish Chess Cogitations web site in Sources → Web; modified one link to open in new window (Sources → Web → boards.ie); added extra indexing information in playable game files
  • v1.3 (26 Mar 2021): corrected Sources and notes → Sources → Facebook entry and removed Sources and notes → Notes → Facebook entry (which each previously pointed to photographs from the 2016 championship); added "Débuts and final appearances" entry in Sources and notes → Notes; added 25 games to Annotations index (previously only external annotations were listed, whereas now any game containing notes with moves is listed); changed ratings shown in playable games to those in effect at beginning of tournament (previously games from August 1 onwards showed August ratings); modified URL to change http to https where possible
  • v1.4 (26 Mar 2024): changed "age" to "(age)" in Pairings & results; modified description of "(age)" in Sources and notes → Notes → Key; corrected spacing in notes in several playable games; added irlch2017_tables.txt file in directory; added XML directory and file; modified format to show direct link to "Sources and notes" page from every page, rather than having to go via Information → Basic data; added link to download pgn from each playable game; added spacing between score groups in Pairings & results, and modified other spacing
  • v1.5 (27 Aug 2026):
    • in Information → Basic data → Information, changed "Organiser" item to "Chief Organiser"
    • ... changed "Arbiter" item to "Chief Arbiter"
    • ... in "FIDE rated?", updated link to FIDE report
    • ... modified "Tie-break" item
    • ... added "Default time" item
    • ... added "Schedule" item
    • in "Pairings & results", increased spacing between score groups
    • in round reports, modified date format
    • in Sources and notes → Sources → FIDE records, updated link to FIDE report
    • ... in "ICU web site", added link to "Irish Championships 2017: Terms and Conditions"
    • ... in Chess24.com, added note that link is dead;
    • ... in Chess-Results.com, modified link (which was previously not functional)
    • ... in TWIC, added combined pgn file, and noted differences with pgn file for this report
    • in Annotations index, added Li - Baburin, round 3, and added references to Alexander Baburin annotations of Tirziman - MacElligott, round 2, and Li - Baburin
    • in Source and notes → Notes → Key, modified "x-ch" item to add circled dot for defending champion
    • ... modified Eligibility item to revise URL
    • ... added Tie-break item
    • ... modified "Débuts and final appearances" item to remove reference to Rory Quinn (cf. 2025 championship)
Contributors Seán Coffey


IRLchess: Irish chess history & records.
Version 1.5, published August 27, 2026. Comments/corrections? .
Download pgn file.