| Notes |
| Key |
In "Pairings & results", - "(age)" denotes the player's age on his or her birthday in 2026 (irrespective of whether the birthday fell before, during, or after the event)
- "x-ch" denotes former Irish champions, via circled dot for defending champion, dot otherwise
- "ol" denotes players who are scheduled to play in the 2026 (Open) Olympiad, Samarkand
- "ch#" denotes the number of championships the player played in, including this one
- "t-b" denotes primary tie-break, i.e., head-to-head results
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| Ratings |
- FIDE ratings are from the August 2026 list.
- ICU ratings are from the July 2026 list.
|
| Clubs |
- Clubs are from the ICU ratings web site, as of July 2026, with the following exceptions:
- Adam Collins (listed as Kilkenny in the ICU list) played four games for Kilkenny in the Armstrong Cup 2025-26, but also a twelve games for Belfast South in the Silver King (UCU League, Division 1); he is shown as Belfast South & Kilkenny here
- Joe Ryan is shown as Phibsboro on the ICU ratings web site, but he last played for the club in 2004-05; no club is listed here for him
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| Olympiad place |
The champion was guaranteed an automatic Olympiad place for the 2028 (Open) Olympiad, if eligible. |
| Débuts |
- 18 players made their Irish championship débuts: Andhurthi, Biswal, Campbell, Field, Martin Fitzgerald, Niall Fitzgerald, Greenan, Heron, Hughes, Landmark, Murray Liu, Mariya Boby, Moull, Mulukutla, O'Brien, Singhal, Thomas Boby and Tureshbayev.
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| Ages |
The median age (actually "(age)"; see Key above) was 18. |
| Eligibility |
Under rules approved at the 2018 AGM, some players could have the rating requirement ignored provided they were nominated by: a. The ICU Executive (maximum 2 players); or b. The tournament organisers (maximum 1 player). In addition, the Irish Women’s Champion, Irish 50+ and 65+ Champions, and all previous IRL winners of this event were automatically eligible to play in the Irish Championship irrespective of rating.
For this event, all players met the rating requirement.
Under new rules approved at the 2025 AGM, all players were eligible for the title of Irish champion. |
| Tie-break |
The tie-break method (see Terms and Conditions) was initially adopted for the 2018 championship, based on ICU Executive Committee decision, and subsequently ratified at the 2018 AGM for all Irish championships; it was modified on July 18, 2026 to change the procedure for resolving ties for places in the playoff match.
Collins and Jessel had drawn their individual game, so the championship went to a playoff. There was an initial two-game rapid match, at 15 minutes plus a 10-second increment, which ended 1-1.
The published rules then allowed arbiter discretion on how to proceed (“If the players are still tied following their rapid match, the arbiter may choose to continue the rapid-match for another 2 games (with one white each) or move to blitz games or have a one-game draw-odds rapid game.”). The arbiter chose to have two blitz games at 3 minutes plus a 2-second increment. This series also ended 1-1. The arbiter then chose to proceed to Armageddon; Collins had White and the time control appears to have been 5 minutes for White and 4 for Black.
See pgn file for playoff. |
| Bye allowance |
Before the start of the championship, a player could request a half point bye for one round in the first 5 rounds. No half-point byes are permitted after the fifth round. Any bye requests received for rounds 6-9, or for any round after the tournament has started, would be a zero point bye.
Field and Stokes requested byes in round 1; Hayes requested a bye in round 4. |
| Withdrawals |
- Mariya Boby withdrew after round 2
- Campbell and G. Melaugh withdrew after round 5
- Arun withdrew after round 8
|
| Anomalies |
The live boards score for Kennedy - Hushpit, round 8, board 12, was a portion, to White's move 46, of Landmark - Joshua Ryan, round 8, board 11. It is not clear which game the moves belong to, and both games are given without moves here. |
| Records |
The field of 55 was the largest ever for an Irish championship, eclipsing the previous record of 53, set at the same venue in 2024. |
| Versions |
- v0.1 (1 Aug 2026): preliminary version with first round draw.
- v0.2 (1 Aug 2026): updated with round 1 results and round 2 draw
- v0.3 (2 Aug 2026): updated with round 2 results and round 3 draw; in Information → Basic data, corrected Default time (30 minutes → 60 minutes); ... added Concurrent events item, with four events from the first weekend; in Information → Interesting games, added Joe Ryan - Venkatesan, Murray - Jessel, and Landmark - S. Melaugh, round 4; in Sources & notes → Sources, added item on Chess.com; added light notes to Daly - Nichenametla V and Hughes - Biswal, round 1, and Hushput - Jessel, round 2, and added Annotations index
- v0.4 (3 Aug 2026): updated with round 3 results and round 4 draw; corrected first round results of Field and Stokes from 0 point byes to ½ point byes; added S. Melaugh - Flynn, round 3, to list of Interesting games; added "{ ... ? }" at end of Singhal - O'Connell, round 2, to note probably incomplete game
- v0.5 (4 Aug 2026): updated with round 4 results and round 5 draw; corrected fourth round result of Hayes from 0 point bye to ½ point bye; in Information → Basic data, added Irish Junior Rapid U20 Championship 2026 and Irish Junior Rapid U12 Championship 2026 to Conurrent events; in Sources and notes → Sources, added Twitch item; in Sources and notes → Notes → Bye allowance, added information on requested byes
- v0.6 (5 Aug 2026): updated with round 5 results and round 6 draw; in Sources and notes → Sources → Web, added references to extra Chess Mail post and to St. Benildus C.C. post
in Sources and notes → Notes, added Withdrawals item; added light notes to G. Melaugh - Collins, Freeman - Brozynski and Field - Voogt, round 5 - v0.7 (6 Aug 2026): updated with round 6 results and round 7 draw; in Sources and notes → Sources → Web, added reference to extra Boards.ie thread
added light notes to Arun - S. Melaugh, round 6 - v0.8 (8 Aug 2026): updated with round 7 results and round 8 draw;
- v0.8 (8 Aug 2026): updated with round 8 results and round 9 draw; added Jessel - Tureshbayev, Collins - Flynn, Murray - O'Connell, Moull - Daly, and M. Fitzgerald - Fox, round 9, to list of Interesting games; in Sources and notes → Notes, added Anomalies item
- v1.0 (17 Aug 2026):
- updated with final results;
- in Information → Basic data, added Prizes item;
- ... in Concurrent events, added Weekday Open, Open Weekender, U20 Blitz, U12 Blitz, and 50+/65+ Event;
- added O'Connell - O'Reilly to list of Interesting games;
- in Pairings & results, changed club affiliations for Collins (Kilkenny → Belfast South & Kilkenny) and Joe Ryan (Phibsboro → blank)
- in Sources and notes → Sources → ICU web site, added link to archived version of tournament page;
- ... in Lichess, added link to playoff report, and added Lichess playoff raw pgn to directory;
- ... in Livechesscloud, added link to raw pgn file, and added pgn to directory
- ... in Chess.com, added link to raw pgn file, and added pgn to directory
- ... in Chess-Results, added link to playoff match;
- ... added TWIC item;
- ... in Web, added another ChessMail item;
- ... in Web, added Drogheda C.C. item;
- ... in Web, added Ennis C.C. blog item
- in Sources and notes → Notes → Key, added "t-b" entry;
- ... moved Ratings item immediately after Key;
- ... added Clubs item
- ... modified Tie-break item, and added pgn file
- ... modified Withdrawals item
- ... modified Records item
- added light notes to Tureshbayev - Joe Ryan, round 7
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| Author |
Seán Coffey |