Hastings Congress 2010-11 Update

Sorry to say Ryan Griffiths didn't make the International masters norm this time. It was a lot to expect - a win with black against an International master in the final round.
However, it's just a matter of time and I definitely think this year Ryan will achieve at least one norm result.

Still a good performance at the Hastings tournament - well done Ryan on a good scalp and keep up the great work. Your making us proud.

Hastings Congress 2010-11 Update

Ryan Rhys Griffiths had a good day today winning a lovely game against Australian International Master Alexsandar Wohl. It was a great game to watch as Wohl realized his position was lost from very early on. He tried to complicate the game but Ryan had it all under control and the win was never in doubt.  So Ryan has 5 points after seven rounds and should have a difficult pairing in the next round.

In my opinion Black is winning from as early as move nine - what do you think?

Hastings Masters 2010-2011

It's good to see Ryan Rhys Griffiths having a nice run in the 2010-2011 Hastings Masters. After six rounds he has four points. Losing only one game: in the first round to GM Kotronias (2591). Below I give today's round (6) game in which he holds Valerly Neverov (2522) to a draw.

Nice one Ryan!! Anyone interested in the Hastings Masters or in Ryan Rhys Griffiths progress should keep an eye on the Hastings Congress site here.

City of Dublin Chess Championship 2010

The above tournament was run last weekend at the Academy Hotel, Dublin. The eventual winner was GM Nick Pert with 5/6. Our own Colm Daly came clear second with 4.5/6 ahead of IM Sam Collins.

I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel as the event is very well covered on the City of Dublin site. I just wanted to highlight Colm Daly's play in this event. I begin by presenting his game against Sam Osbourne:

He just demolished Sam's King's Indian Defence. Next is his nice draw against GM Nick Pert:

Fine games - displaying clear logical play throughout. I can't wait to see the Irish games in the Olympiad.

Sam Collins has done it!

Sam Collins has achieved his second grandmaster norm. In the last post I mistakenly claimed he needed one point from his last two games. Thankfully I was wrong - Kevin O'Connell on the Leinster Chess Blog cleared it all up and showed that only half a point was required against the right opponents.

Well he did it, now to complete the grandmaster requirements Sam requires a third norm and a rating of 2500. No pressure, but he has a chance in the Dun Laoire Tournament at the end of the month and also at the Olympiad.

Here is the game which helped Sam achieve the second grandmaster norm.

Hopefully it won't be too long before we can say he has achieved his third and final norm.

Sam Collins getting closer to the Grandmaster goal!

IM Sam Collins is having a fantastic performance at the 2010 Artic Chess Challenge, held in Norway!

After seven rounds his score stands at an undefeated 5.5/7. This after playing one Woman International Master and five Grandmasters!! The talk is that if he achieves one point out of his last two games he could get his second grandmaster norm.

I don't think I will ever have to worry about these formula so I will just cross my fingers for Sam and hope he achieves whatever is required. 

Against the five Grandmasters Sam scored three draws and two wins. I provide below his fine win against GM Ivan Ivanisevic (2611)

I for one will be following Sams performance for the rest of the tournament. You can to at the following link provided by Alex Lopez.

These feel like magical times for Irish Chess - between the fine performances at the British Championship, the closed tournaments in Dublin at the end of the month, the plans John Delaney and others have for junior chess, and now maybe a home grown Irish Grandmaster. I hope this leads to an Irish chess explosion.

The Irish at the British

Well the British championship concluded tonight and I must say that the Irish players did very well.

Firstly, in the under 13 championship, Ronan Magee took clear second with a score of 5.5/7 - and a performance rating of 175 BCF (2125).

Pete Morris had a great performance in the Senior championship and finished on 4.5/7. He final score does not reflect how close he was to winning.  He was in with a shout till the very last round - he played on board two in this round. He had some good wins against J. Dodgson (2125) in round two and Jim Vickery (2135) in round six. (Many thanks to Pat Twomey for bringing this to my attention.)

In the championship proper Ryan R Griffiths was unlucky in the last round: in trying to avoid a draw by repetition he walked into a mating net. I think Ryan will be glad to see the back of this championship as he didn't appear to be firing on all cylinders. His performance at the last Hastings tournament shows he is capable of so much more than this. Definitely better things to come.

You can view their individual results at the following link. Well done to all those who took part - you did us proud!

Griffiths takes Grandmaster Scalp!

Today in the British Championship in Canterbury, Ryan Griffiths played a fine game and beat GM Summerscale (2428). This is a great result and must be some consolation for Ryan who appeared to be playing well below par so far in the championship.

 

Well done Ryan, and best of luck in the rest of the championship.

Klatovy Open A 2010

Well our boy in the Czech Republic did good: finishing in sixth place overall with a score of 6/9. A performance rating of 2381 and lost only one game.

The performance is really excellent when the standard of play is considered, Rory played dynamic chess throughout and was always willing to enter into complications. His play was well below his usual standard in his one loss. Rory played no short draws and in a number of the drawn games I felt that he had the advantage.

Here is Rory's eight round game!

The following is Rory's ninth round game, he definitely had the better of it. I wonder if Rory's exchange sacrifice on move twenty-six was really necessary?

Well done again Rory, no criticism intended I couldn't have done it! That's a great performance I hope it gives you confidence to go forward.

Klatovy 2010 Open A

Just a brief post to let you know what's happening with our boy in the Czech Republic. As you know in the sixth round Rory had black against Kubecka (2291). Well thinks didn't go his way and he got slaughtered to tell the truth. Won't really know what happened till we hear from Rory. All I can say is that he played well below par. In today's round Rory had a win against Tomas Duran (2236). It was on board eight so can't comment on the game. The top six boards are broadcast live.

This win brings Rory up to fifth place and has him playing Joel Jancarik (2179) on board three tomorrow. So we can follow the action online! Rory is still in with a chance of a prize as he is only half a point behind the leaders with two rounds to go. Fingers crossed that he can keep his cool and get a result.

It's great to see an Irish player performing at this standard! No matter what happens he has done us proud!

Rory Quinn leads Klatovy 2010 Open A

Rory has drawn his fifth round game against the number three seed Jan Sodoma (2364) of the Czech Republic. It was a good game, with Rory looking to be in trouble for a while, however he had it all worked out and White could make no headway.

The top game was also drawn so that places Rory in first place technically. I know its early days yet but here's hoping Rory can keep it up.

After four round Rory's performance rating was 2610!! However, conceding a draw to Sodoma has brought this down to 2532. Rory will be very disappointed (ha!).

As the above table shows next round Rory faces Kubecka - well best of luck Rory.

I'll keep you informed!

Klatovy 2010 Open A

Breaking news, Rory Quinn of Ennis has been having a great run in the Klatovy 2010 Open A tournament. At the moment he is in second place!

The tournament is a nine round swiss open tournament, with a time control of 2 h + 30 s of compensation per move until the end of the game. Rory is seeded 43 of the 83 competitors. This did not appear to bother Rory as in the first round he was paired, on board two, against the second seed IM Hausner (2451). Rory proceeded to win this game to the great surprise of the locals. In the second round Rory faced Turner (2191) on board 13 and drew this game. The following round saw Rory again on Board 13 with white against Cernik (2205). Rory also won this game bringing him into fifth place overall in the tournament. In todays round Rory had white again against Vorisek (2250). Rory again won bringing his score to 3.5/4. Fantastic performance, and this after Rory stating on his excellent blog: "I most likely won't be taking the chess aspect too seriously in any case!"

Well I think that idea is under some pressure at the moment. However Rory is at the disadvantage of not having his laptop with him, thus preventing him from proper preparation for his future opponents.

I present below two of Rory's games for your enjoyment, beginning with his first round win:

Now the latest game, which was nerve racking to watch, no mind play, as black was in severe time trouble even from the point I joined the game at move fifteen. The 30 second time compensation making it worse.

I will keeping you informed of Rory's results. Here's hoping he can maintain this excellent performance.

You can keep track of the tournament on this site and you can watch the six top boards on this site.

Hastings Masters 2009 - 10

Three Irish players took part in the recently completed Hastings Masters tournament. They were IM Sam Collins, Ryan Griffiths, and James McDonnell. I think Collins and McDonnell will surely want to forget the whole experience. However, the performance of Ryan Griffiths deserves the highest praise. He finished on 5.5/9 and had a performance rating of 2350!

The progress table below gives some idea of this fantastic performance.



I post a few of Ryan Griffiths games from the event. Starting with his round four encounter with IM Andrew Martin. I don't know about you (there's no accounting for taste), but in the final position I certainly prefer Black.



And now Ryan's round five win against FM Webb.



I conclude with his eight round fighting draw with IM Kolbus.



I am really blown away by this performance. Will Ryan Griffiths be Ireland’s first home grown Grandmaster?

Mulcahy Memorial 2010

Well done to Mick Bradley, Peter Doyle, and Stephen Short for running the event. The tournament attracted an entry of 50 players, and was hosted in the Cork Bridge Club. It was a six round Swiss event with a time limit of 90 minutes for all moves. The top seeds were Paul Walsh and David Path.

Round one
Move along nothing to see here - all the top boards went as expected.

Round two.
The news of this round was NM Eamon Keogh’s draw!. Eamon was unlucky to encounter a well prepared Denis O’Connell. The game deserves study if you have to answer Eamon's 1.f4 in the future.



Round three.
Missed this round so I can’t really report on any of the games at the moment.

Round four.
In this round Paul Walsh’s winning hopes began to falter when he conceded his first draw to Kieran O’Riordan. From this point on Paul didn't appear to be creating any real problems for his opponents.



In comparison David Path played a great game against Arnaud Aoustin and now appeared to be the man to watch.

Round five.
On board one Stephen Short broke David Path’s winning streak. Paul Walsh conceded another draw to Paul Kiely.
Going into the last round Stephen Short was leading with 4.5 points however he could hear the baying of a pack on four points! These included Paul Walsh, Eamon Keogh and David Path.

Round six.
On top board Stephen Short produced a tense game against Paul Walsh, but was forced to concede the draw in the end. This was done with great reluctance as Eamon Keogh had already defeated David Path. Eamon converted his advantage of two bishops and queen against two knights and queen with great skill. On board four Kieran O’Riordan (definitely one to watch!) also had a nice win against Arnaud Aoustin. On board five Paul Kiely produced the following nice game.



Results:
Joint first - Stephen Short & Eamon Keogh 5/7 - Stephen awarded title on tie break.
Joint Third - Kieran O Riordain, Paul Walsh, Paul Kiely, Hugh Doyle 4.5.
David v Goliath - Keegan O Mahoney win over David O Kelly R1.
Rating performance - Tony Dalton.
Grading prizes : John Connolly, Connor O Donnell, Wim van Hookstad, Pat Twomey.