Cup teams all out; Gerry leads in blitz

The club came to a close for the summer break with both remaining Cup teams being knocked out at the first knock-out stage, while Gerry’s lead at the top of the blitz narrowed despite his nearest rivals not playing.

Final night blitz on Wednesday

The club will be closing for the summer on Wednesday with round 4 of our Blitz Grand Prix at the usual time of 8 to 10. We’ll try squeeze in rounds 5 and 6 in September and then get back on our usual schedule with the Frank Scott Shield and the leagues starting after that.

In the meantime, we’ll be arranging our senior club championships over June, with the first round scheduled for 13th July.

Olympiad selection for Lara

Congratulations to Lara, who has been selected for the upcoming Olympiad in Chennai in India. She’ll be the first Benildus player to travel since Nicky Benson went to the 2010 Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk. Gerry O’Connell (Elista 1998) is the only other player to represent the country while a St Benildus player.

Diana Bueckert was named as third reserve in the event of any withdrawals.

The Olympiad is from 28th July to 10th August. Best of luck Lara!

Lara in the textbooks

Seán Coffey (once of this parish of course), found an interesting link between one of Lara’s games in Sligo recently and a famous textbook Capablanca ending from 100 years ago. And when I say “interesting link” – it’s the exact same position. See more here on Seán’s site.

The week in review

In which the Branagan B pick up a second IM result in as many weeks, and Gerry won the first blitz grand prix event in more than two years despite being the lowly fourth seed.

Blitz Grand Prix tonight

After last week’s abortive attempt to get the Blitz Grand Prix back up and running, we’re going to give it another go tonight as the software is apparently fixed. Usual details – 8-10 and 6 rounds.

It looks like two Cup games next week, which means we’d have another round on the 25th, which would be the last club night before the exams.

Club re-opening continues

We’ve been re-opening the club the last couple of weeks with some Branagan and Killane games, so we’re going to roll it out another step on Wednesday and restart our blitz grand prix tournament.