Leagues round 2 update

A round-up of our teams’ second round performances in the Leinster leagues – five matches saw four wins as we go top of the Armstrong and threaten to get an Armstrong C team…

Upcoming weekenders

There’s a few weekenders in the next few months as chess properly gets back to normal! Limerick and Kilkenny are in November; there’s already about ten players from the club entered into the latter. The Leinster Juniors are on in the New Year as per usual, and alongside them are an IM norm event, an FM norm event, the Irish U1400 Championship, the Irish 1300-1700 Championship, and the Irish 50+ and 65+ championships – all in the Talbot Hotel in Stillorgan.

There’s a Cavan Congress in January, with Gonzaga two weeks later and weekenders in Sligo and Cork in Feb, though Bunratty is unfortunately cancelled next year due to hotel renovations.

All details on the ICU calendar.

Frank Scott Shield 2022

The (delayed) Frank Scott Shield will get underway on 2nd November. We have a few free dates marked in on the fixture list, but we may have a delay if players can’t make a round for international tournaments, which we’ve had a few of lately.

The current entry list is below, and if you want in, let me know!

Leagues underway!

The first league games in 2½ years have been taking place the last couple of weeks, and already we have some results which are likely to be on our High Fives come the season’s end.

St Benildus 2½-3½ Zuid Limburg

A record-breaking ECC in many ways ended with deja vu all over again as for the third time in a row, we had 2½ points on the board with games still in play, but once again came out on the wrong side of a 3½-2½ scoreline.

Etelä-Vantaan 3½-2½ St Benildus

Once again, we went down 3½-2½ in the ECC after another decisive final game in which we had definite chances of a result, but ultimately lost. That we continue to almost double our expected score is little consolation in Austria this evening!

Cercle Dudelange 3½-2½ St Benildus

My book One Night in Dudelange is about a plucky Irish underdog side travelling to the German-speaking part of the world to take on a team from Dudelange in European competition – they take an early lead, hold on through a heroic, extended and almost impossible onslaught, and just about hang on for the win. The chess equivalent went the exact same way – except that we buckled at the end and conceded a 95th-minute winner…

St Benildus 2-4 Gonzaga

While we went down to defeat in a first-ever ECC match against our old rivals, our second-highest ECC ever win did at least help make it another good day at the office, and we’re still tracking at twice our expected score.

En Passant 4½-1½ St Benildus

In which we continue to exceed expected score thanks to John’s win in our first-ever repeated ECC game and yet another draw from Brendan.

St Benildus 2½-3½ Dardania

Lara’s first ever ECC win and a farcically long draw from Kevin saw another excellent day at the office – half a point more than yesterday against a team of similar strength.