The Branagan and Killane/Brennan Cups are underway, and while our Killane team got underway with a decent win, they were upstaged by our Ennis team – with BEA sub – who were a wrongly-set clock away from a draw with the Armstrong champions.
Our Killane team is probably a daunting one to face, and indeed when they lined up against Dublin, our team’s combined age would have been around the same as a number of Dublin’s players – one of the things that makes chess such a great game! But Dublin certainly had plenty of experience, and a 4-2 win was a great result to get the competition underway. Eric snatched a perpetual to draw, while Zhengjun also drew on 1. Yubo, Danny and Fearghal got the wins, with only Thomas going down to defeat.
Due to numbers, the Killane and the William Brennan have been merged, but will both still be presented – so the only other team in the Killane is Skerries, who lost 4-2 at the weekend. The results are here.
But it was the Branagan who stole the show. Up against a pretty much full-strength Gonzaga A side – including five of their declared Armstrong panel, plus one of their subs – we had what looked like a complete mismatch with Leon on 1 against Sam Collins IM, Kavin on 2 against Henry Li FM, sub Ben on 3 against Gordon Freeman… A good performance and some valuable analysis time was the aim, and if we could avoid a whitewash, that would be a bonus.
But that’s not how it went at all. Kavin took the first draw, having basically played better than Henry throughout the game until he got to a position which was close to winning, so Henry opted to use his ratings advantage to bail out with a draw offer. It’s Kavin’s first FM result; his previous best was a win against a CM.
We followed that up with another draw, this from BEA sub Ben against Gordon Freeman, another best-ever result. Leon lost on 1 against Sam, and Slavko let slip a decent position against Ray Kelly to lose. But Odhrán was two pawns up against Eoghan Casey, and when Eoghan then hung a piece, it was all down to the last game. We were winning that one too, but then William, who was getting into time trouble, realised that he wasn’t getting any increments. The clocks had been set up wrong – 90 minutes flat instead of 90+30 – and in the ensuing panic, he ended up dropping a piece and losing the game. It turned a 3-3 draw into a 4-2 defeat, which is still an exceptional result for the lowest-ranked team against a side with two titled players.
We play Gonzaga B on Saturday – which will surely be easy by comparison! – while the Killane travel to Dún Laoghaire next Wednesday.