On the 6th October 1958 Ireland were paired against the Soviet Union at the Munich chess Olympiad. This was in the day's when teams had to qualify for the finals. Ireland ended up in qualifying group one. As to be expected we came last in this group with 4 points. However, we at least had the satisfaction of winning one match - beating Italy. Getting back to Ireland v Russia. This must have been a truly memorable experience as the Russian team was star studded. A little research found the following by J.J Walsh who played board one for the Irish team:
"October 6th 1958 was a memorable day for Irish chess. On this day we played the USSR in the Munich Olympiad and although losing by the expected 0-4 margin, we were far from being disgraced. The Soviet team on that occasion was M. Botvinnik (world champion); 2.P. Kere; 3, D. Bronstein: 4.M Tal (future world champion). My game with the world champion produced a stirring struggle in which I was not totally without chances."
The other members of the Irish team on that great day were Brian Reilly, Desmond De Loughrey and A. Russell.
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In his report for the British Chess Magazine, Leonard Barden had this to say on the match: "Inexperience told against Ireland in the preliminaries. When De Loughrey played 1 P-K4 against Bronstein and the Russian replied with 1...P-QB3, the Irishman had to go to Brian Reilly and ask him what the name of the opening was!"
Even though Reilly was the editor of the BCM, I'm still a bit dubious about this anecdote, particularly as De Loughrey had faced the Caro-Kann in the previous round!
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