Istanbul Olympiad

Posted on September 1, 2012 by Sean Coffey

Anyone at all interested in Irish chess is surely following the progress of the Irish teams at the Olympiad in Istanbul. The live games coverage is outstanding, the captain of the open team, Colm Daly, is also reporting progress on his blog, and there’s discussion on the LCU Blog. (An outstanding result for the open team today, losing 2½-1½ to an Israeli team that outrated them by well over 200 points on every board, and at that Ireland was unlucky not to do better.)

In any case, I don’t plan to post here again until the Olympiad is over, barring some compelling reason, on the grounds that the chess reading-time budget of most readers will already have been used up by the Olympiad. So expect to see new posts here around September 10 or so.

Posted in Administrative | 1 Comment

Pictures from the Dublin Zonal, 1957

Posted on August 27, 2012 by Sean Coffey

Over at the ICU site there’s a fascinating report from Mark Orr, on a hitherto unknown trove of photographs, mostly of the Dublin zonal in 1957, belonging to Joe Keenan and discovered this year by his relative John Shearan (Malahide C.C.).

A summary wouldn’t do this collection justice: take a look for yourself at the link above. My favourite is the one of Pal Benko and Ken O’Riordan at Portmarnock beach on the rest day, with the photo of the participants at An Tóstal, Dublin 1956 a close second.

I also love the way player nationalities at the zonal are given as Gaeilge.

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Donaldson-Aoustin, Cork Congress 2012

Posted on August 25, 2012 by Sean Coffey

The Olympiad starts on Monday, with the first games on Tuesday. Best of luck to the Irish teams (Sam Collins, Alex Lopez, Ryan-Rhys Griffiths, Gavin Wall and Daire McMahon for the open event, and Monika Gedvilaite, Hannah Lowry-O’Reilly, Gearóidín Uí Laighléis, Karina Kruk, and Sarah-Jane Hearne for the Women’s event: see the Olympiad official page’s list of registered countries).

John Donaldson, Cork Congress 2012I would also like to wish best of luck to the chess director of my local club, IM John Donaldson (at right in the photo), who’s non-playing captain of the American (open) team. I didn’t realise this until I went down to the Tuesday evening lecture this week and found he wasn’t there, as he was already en route. He participated in both Bunratty and the Cork Congress this year (flying back to San Francisco in between to fulfil a club obligation–that’s dedication for you!). He very kindly sent all his games from these two events, as well as some others from 1995. Here is his final-round game from the Cork Congress, against Arnaud Aoustin (not available anywhere else, as far as I know).

Donaldson - Aouston, Cork Congress 2012John Donaldson – Arnaud Aoustin
20th Cork Congress (6), 25th Mar 2012

White was comfortably in control a few moves earlier, and with 22. (or 23. or 24. or 25.) b6 Black would have been struggling to find any play. Instead Black’s 25. … Qb6! brought him fully back into the game and even gave him the advantage. The diagrammed position shows the choice faced by Donaldson, to move, on move 28. Objectively something like 28. Bf3 turns out to be best, but would probably give no more than a draw, which was of no use given the tournament situation. Black was very short of time, so Donaldson gambled with 28. Bd5!??!.

After 28. … Bxd5 29. Nxf5+, of course 29. … Kf8? is bad because of 30. Qh6+ Kg8 31. Rxf7, and 29. … Kg8 30. Nh6+ Kg7 31. Nf5+ just repeats. The right choice is 29. … Kh8! when Black’s winning. Instead Aoustin, in severe time pressure, went astray with 29. … Kg6? and was finished off in fine style: 30. Qh6+ Kxf5 31. Qh5+ Ke4 32. Qg4+ Kd3 33. Qf5+ Ke2 34. Rcc1 Bc4 35. Rfe1+ Kd2 36. Qf4+ 1-0.

[Click to replay the full game.]

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A miniature: Allen-Clarke

Posted on August 23, 2012 by Sean Coffey

Time for a game. And why not a miniature? Here is an entertaining and instructive game between Keith Allen and Tom Clarke, event and date unknown (possibly a club game?) from a club game around 1988. Source: James O’Fee’s blog (plus extra details from David McAlister in the comments here).

Allen - Clarke, Belfast and District League, ca. 1988Keith Allen – Tom Clarke
Belfast and District League Div. 1 (Ulster Trophy), c. 1988
Fisherwick – Civil Service

1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nc6 3. cxd5 Qxd5 4. Nf3 e5 5. Nc3 Bb4 6. dxe5 Qxd1+ 7. Kxd1 Bg4 8. Bf4 O-O-O+ 9. Kc1 Nge7 10. e3 Nd5 11. Bg5 f6 12. exf6 gxf6 13. Nxd5 Rxd5 14. Bxf6 Rc5+ 15. Bc3 Rd8 16. Be2 Bf5 (diagram) 17. Rd1? Rxc3+ 0-1.

[Click to replay the full game.]

I thought the diagrammed position was hopeless anyway (it would have been different if White had interposed 16. a3 Ba5 before playing Be2, when it’s very much all to play for). But the computer comes up with the strange-looking line 17. e4 Bxe4 18. Nd2 Bf5 19. Nb1 Nd4 20. Bd1, when it thinks Black’s better but White is hanging on.

Updated 24 August 2012.

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Glorney Cup 1964

Posted on August 18, 2012 by Sean Coffey

Glorney Cup 1964

Here is a photograph of the players at the 1964 Glorney Cup, played in London.

A warmup question: can you identify the three very well known English players who are in the third row from front, seventh from right; second row from the front (seated), fifth from left; and second row from the front, seventh from left (holding the trophy)? See a larger image before giving up: they’re really quite recognizable.

This photo is from Alan McGowan’s excellent page on Scottish Teams in the Glorney Cup over on the Chess Scotland pages; he credits John Glendinning of the Scottish team, the leftmost player in the back row. (And it’s shown here with Alan’s permission, for which thanks.)

An account of the event, including final crosstable, can be found over on OlimpBase’s pages on the Glorney Cup (information largely assembled by David McAlister). It was the first Glorney Cup to include France and The Netherlands, and was a very competitive one, with one point separating the top three teams.

The Irish team that year was Kevin Ryan, John Moles, Ray Byrne, Ray (Raphael) Farina, J. Lacy, Gerard McAleavy, Solomon Negrine and Gerald McCurdy. (Again from David McAlister’s records.)

And now here’s the main question, not an easy one: how many of them can you identify?

Posted in Glorney Cups, Players, Tournaments | Leave a comment

Svetozar Gligorić 1923-2012

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Sean Coffey

TWIC reports that Svetozar Gligorić died today in Belgrade. (Born 2nd February 1923, Belgrade.) He was one of the household names in world chess when I was learning the moves, so for me and I’m sure for many others this is the end of an era.

He visited Ireland on at least a couple of occasions. One was for the Dublin zonal, 1957, tying with Benko for 2nd-3rd behind Pachman. The other occasion I’m aware of was his series of four simuls in February 1971 (Cork, Wexford, and two in Dublin): see the Simuls page.

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Conor Barrington

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Sean Coffey

J.J. Walsh brought the news of the recent death of Conor Barrington. There was a notice in the Irish Times (3rd-4th October 2011): Conor Barrington (Mount Tallant Avenue, Dublin), formerly of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, d. 1st October 2011, Rathfarnham.

He played quite a bit in Ireland in the 1970’s, finishing equal second in the 1975 Leinster championship. We both played in the 1979 Irish championship, finishing with similar scores, but I don’t recall if I ever played him. I have only sketchy details thereafter, but if I understand correctly his career in the Department of Foreign Affairs took him overseas after 1979 or so, to Chicago and later Saudi Arabia. He was in Ireland in 1989 and was on the Rathmines team that won the Armstrong Cup and the National Club Championship, and for good measure he was joint winner of the Rathmines club championship.

There are only two games of his in the ICU archive, both losses from that 1979 Irish championship, and only the same two are in Big Database 2012. He was also on the Irish team for the 1974 World Student (U26) Team Championship in Teesside, England, as 2nd reserve. As mentioned elsewhere, these Student Olympiads were tough events, and he struggled with an overall score of +1 =1 -5. OlimpBase has all these games, so here is his win, against Douglas Tudhope (Scotland):

Barrington - Tudhope, Teesside 1974Conor Barrington – Douglas Tudhope
World Student Team Ch, Teesside 1974 [final-B, round 8]
Ireland-Scotland, board 4

Here’s the position after Barrington’s 24. Qg5. The finish was 24. … Qf8 25. Rf1 Kg7 26. Qe3 h6 27. h4 Kh7 28. g5 Ng4 29. Qe2 Qg8 30. Qe7+ 1-0.

[Click to replay the full game.]

Any other games (especially any other wins) would be great. Can anyone supply any?

Posted in Games, Players | 2 Comments

European Union Youth Championship 2012

Posted on August 12, 2012 by Sean Coffey

Ireland’s representatives at the recently-concluded European Union Youth Championships in Mureck, Austria,were Geoffrey Keating, Diana Mirza, Sasha-Ettore Faleschini and Mark Tonita (respectively U14, U12, U10, and U8). All games have now appeared on the tournament web site, and the 36 games involving the Irish contingent have been added to the archive here.

Radeva - Mirza, EUYCC 2012Diana Mirza deserves congratulations for finishing 12th overall in the U12 championships with 5/9, winning the silver medal for U12 girls. She finished ½ point behind the gold medal winner, Viktoria Radeva (Bulgaria). Their individual game was a hard-fought and interesting one: though Diana eventually lost, she had definite chances of a result. The diagram shows the position after Radeva’s 27. c5.

[Click to replay the full game.]

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Bibliography

Posted on August 10, 2012 by Sean Coffey

A new Bibliography page has been added to the menu above. The plan is to include information on all books, journals, columns, articles, and DVDs written in Ireland or by Irish authors.

Cover of Eminent Victorian Chess PlayersI hasten to add that the current page comes nowhere close to the promise above! That represents an enormous amount of material, and it will have to be built up gradually.

But the longest journey begins with a single step, as they say, so to get started, the initial cut includes the latest books in print that I’m aware of, the most recent of which is Tim Harding’s Eminent Victorian Chess Players (McFarland, 2012).

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Scottish championship 2012

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Sean Coffey

Several Irish players participated in the Scottish championship this year, with general success. The highlight was Conor O’Donnell’s win against Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant. At 13 he’s probably the youngest Irish player ever to defeat a grandmaster.

The games from the first 7 rounds showed up as usual in TWIC (issue 923), and were imported into the IRLchess games archive from there. But only the ‘live board’ games from rounds 8 and 9 appeared in TWIC, with Mark Orr’s round 9 game the only Irish one. TWIC seems to have a strict policy of being this week in chess, so games that miss their natural place don’t get a new place in later issues.

However the games did finally appear on the tournament website, and have now been included in the IRLchess database (just search for “119thScottish Championship 2012″ in the “Search Games” feature): ten new games plus one result (the moves for Diana Mirza’s last-round win are missing on the tournament website).

Here’s one interesting situation, from another Conor O’Donnell win, this time against a 2175-rated opponent:

O'Donnell - RysbayaevaConor O’Donnell – Aigerim Rysbayeva
119th Scottish Ch, round 8
14th July 2012

White is winning easily and after 36. Kf2 or any of a number of other ‘safe’ moves, would surely bring home the win quickly. Instead Conor played 36. Rxe6!??!.

Did he see the full finish? If so, well calculated. If not, he was a little lucky that it all worked out in the end. Either way it seems a bit chancy! I’d have played 36. Kf2 myself.

See if you can calculate the end from this diagram.

[Click to play through the full game.]

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