A round-up of an ECC which, for us, was record-breaking in a record-breaking number of ways. Plus, the return of the closing ceremony and associated tradition, a three-way tie in our ECC comparisons game, and our hand in four titles.
Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. We lost all our games and came last – again. That makes it 14 defeats in a row now going back to a draw in the last round in Montenegro, which saw us finish second last, our joint highest finish ever.
But us Leinster League teams know that game points are the only proper way to score a team competition, and on that basis we had an excellent tournament. 15½ points over the week was our first record – more than in any of our previous touraments, and only two points off the maximum we could have scored and still ended up with no match points. We only picked up 2½-3½ scorelines twice in our previous five tournaments, but four times here. We got more game points than five other teams, one of whom (Dardania) won three matches. Our score with white, amazingly, was 50%.
Individually, John’s 4/5 is a new record, beating Mariusz’ 3½ in Turkey, and against average opponents 400 points higher. It means that, in his fourth tournament, he’s quintupled his ECC wins haul. Brendan Cooney also only lost once, in his case becoming the first player to lose only once at two different ECCs.
A cynic might point out that some of our opponents did go a bit easy on us. Echternach in round 1 left out their IM board 3, Etela-Vantaan left out their boards 1 and 3 (both FMs) and Zuid Limburg left out their FM board 2. If you leave out the weak Turkish side we played in 2017, who skew average ratings, Austria saw our weakest average opponent. We could argue back that Dudelange put out their strongest team against us, as did Gonzaga and En Passant, who had no subs – but let’s run with the argument and switch to expected score instead. On that basis, John was a whopping 2.62 ahead of expected score – almost exactly the same as our next two best ECC performances combined. And those two performances – Kavin and Lara – were also in Austria. Only Constantin and Mihailo in Turkey beat expected score by a full point. John and Constantin managed it from just five games; Lara had four blacks. Leon, myself and Brendan, weren’t far behind with a combined +2.57, and all six of us feature in the top ten best ECC performances on that basis.
All this translates into a spectacular team performance, 6.80 ahead of expected score, or nearly 80%. In every match, the team played at least 100 points ahead of our rating; rounds 1 and 2 here join Modra as the only matches where we’ve performed more than 200 points above ourselves. Four of the 12 highest rating gains in the tournament were St Benildus players; no other club gained as many points as we did (205) across the tournament. Only Denizsu Aquamatch of Turkey (200) gained more than 90. And we added another 1.04 onto our already spectacular score against FMs – which now reads expected score 6, actual score 11.
“But”, our cynic might continue, “The team’s FIDE ratings were underinflated this year; that’s not a fair comparison. The team’s published average rating was the lowest we’ve ever had, but the ICU rating average was 30 points higher, making it the strongest team we’ve ever sent. ICU ratings shouldn’t be higher than FIDE ratings!” OK – so let’s look at raw rating performances. John’s 2295 – basically FM standard – is our second best ever, behind only Eugene Curtin’s ½/2 against the world number 6. Kavin’s 2214 is our fourth-best ever performance. Constantin (in 2019 and 2021) is the only other player to have turned in a 2200+ performance. Our team performance was above 2000 for the first time in the modern era, almost 40 points higher than our previous best in Turkey (again taking out Hatay). Kavin and Lara’s wins against Gonzaga and Dardania respectively both enter our top five best wins. John’s 26th place finish in the board prize stakes is a record high, even higher than we ever managed in Turkey and North Macedonia, when the field was half as big.
Even our cynic has to acknowledge that it was an exceptional performance from all across the week.
But enough about us – what about our opponents? De Sprenger Echternach won three matches to finish very slightly below their seeding. John’s opponent scored 0/3 for the week – granted, he had a GM and an IM after John – but their board 1 scored 5½/7 for a 2629 performance and a third GM norm. It doesn’t give him the title though – his norms only cover 25 games, not the required 27, so he still has to get one more. They played our friends CA Silla 1475 Origin of Modern Chess in round 3, the first side to play both us and José’s team in the same tournament, and lost 6-0. So while we can match them in football or water polo, we’ve a ways to go before beating them over the board!
Dardania also won three games, but scored fewer points than us. They didn’t waste game points – after beating us, they scored just a single draw in their next two matches, and beat Gonzaga 3½-2½ in the last round. Kevin’s opponent didn’t play after round 2, maybe feeling he’d already played his full allotment of moves for the week after that marathon draw.
En Passant followed up their win over us with a draw against our old friends Gambit Bonnevoie (whom we played in Turkey and Montenegro) and a win against local side Zell/Zillertal to end on five match points. My opponent – who drew with Leon last year – gained 40 points, and his 4½/7 score earns him the CM title, although as he’s been above 2200 before, he presumably values CM about as highly as Kev McHugh!
Gonzaga actually outdid us in the 3½-2½ stakes – five of their games ended that score, though they did win one of them. But narrow defeats helped them in a way as it meant lower opponents for Gordon Freeman and Colin Menzies, who inflicted John and Brendan C’s only defeats of the week en route to 5/7 and FM titles. Gordon had his in the bag after round 6, and hand-wrote “FM” in on his nametag at the start of round 7, so there was no doubt but that he was going to take his title! Ennis’ Rory Quinn joined them to make it three Irish FMs for the week.
Dudelange finished just one place ahead of us, and one place behind their seeding, losing all their other games. Their board 5 defaulted in round 6, presumably due to a positive covid test, although we weren’t informed despite John having been sat opposite the guy for four hours the previous day. I guess we can take that as a sign that things are getting more or less back to normal…
Etela-Vantaan had a nightmare of a tournament – depite recovering to beat the two bottom seeds in the last two rounds, the six players who played us lost 85 points between them over the week, and Lara’s opponent ended on 1/6, with just the win against Lara to show for the week.
Finally to Zuid Limburg, the only side who weren’t on 0 match points by the time they played us, having beaten Dudelange in round 4. They had a fairly solid tournaments, with five games ending 4-2 and the other two ending 3½-2 – very similar to us, but in squeezing an extra 2½ game points out of the week, they picked up an extra four match points. Those are the margins we were looking at…
Anyway, to the closing ceremony, which was back on the cards after the no-show in North Macedonia last year, if still a bit functional. There was at least a few free bottles of beer floating around while we had the Austrian and ECU anthems (I think they were), heard a few speeches, saw some random people presented with a big king for some reason, and then had a quick run through the prizegiving.
One notable item here was the presence on the podium of Viernheim, making them the first team to have both been in the top three and have played us, albeit not at the same tournament – they beat us 6-0 in Montenegro the day after our Modra win. It wasn’t quite the same squad – they had Mamedyarov on 1 and Maze on 6, while Konstantin Tarlev (far left in the photo below), who beat Constantin on board 1 in Montenegro, was board 8 here. Stefan Martin (holding the trophy) was player-captain in Montenegro – ousting Odhrán in 92 moves on the bottom board – and was non-playing captain here.
They weren’t the only former Benildus opposition on the top boards in the last round – Asnieres, our opening opponents last year, were on board 1 in the final round this time, and Carlsen’s Offerspil, featuring two of the Valerenga team we played in Turkey, and from whom Offerspill split in 2019, were on board 2
The return of the closing ceremony did mean that we could resurrect our old tradition of getting a photo with a trophy winner – so here’s Leon, Lara and Kavin with Novy Bor’s David Navara and the winner’s trophy.
They weren’t the only celebrities knocking about at prizegiving of course –
And that was that for another year. All that was left was to consider where Austria ranked in our ever-growing collection of tournaments. Here’s what we reckoned –
Hotel (10)
This was the first year that the tournament was in a town rather than a beach resort, so it forces us to think differently about some of the criteria. The hotel is one. It was never going to be as grandiose and sprawling as, say, Turkey or Greece, but for all that, the Hotel Strass wasn’t a bad spot at all, with huge rooms, decent wifi (a first!), plenty on site (see later) and a lovely video playing on loop in the bar! If you were going back to Mayrhofen on a regular holiday (and there’s plenty of reasons to do this), you’d check back in here again.
TUR 9; GRE 8; MNE 4; NMK 6; AUT 7
Opening ceremony (5)
There wasn’t one really – only one person per team was invited, there were some speeches and a bit of music from two of the players, and that was about it. A good opening ceremony can really make a tournament feel special from the off. This one didn’t do that.
TUR 5; GRE 1; MNE 4; NMK 3; AUT 1
Bar area (5)
Plenty of choice here. The bar in the hotel was ok, the Portobello was a bit dank, but Mike’s was a great spot. It opened a week extra just for the tournament and the result was a Bunratty-esque vibe, aided by two barstaff from County Clare. Any pub where Carlsen and co sit down at the table next to you has to score highly, and I can even overlook the fact that I drank the place out of cider by day 3!
TUR 3; GRE 4; MNE 2; NMK 2; AUT 5
Beer price (5)
The downside of Mike’s being a proper pub was that it charged actual money for the beer, which wasn’t the case in Turkey or Montenegro. It pains me to score the place down, but rules are rules…
TUR 5; GRE 2; MNE 4; NMK 3; AUT 2
Food (10)
Now this one is interesting. One of the initial things we’d seen about the tournament – a couple of months before we travelled – was that lunch wasn’t included, as it had been in all previous events. But by the end of the week, we didn’t care about that – in fact, it was probably better that way. We all know we eat far too much at these events!
So what did we have? Breakfast was decent, with eggs done to order. Lunch was from the large Spar across the road, so plenty of choice there. Dinner was five courses, and though they were small and a bit arty, they were really really good. OK, the area was a bit loud and getting a beer was hard at times, but quality-wise it was right up there with Turkey, if not slightly ahead. And if you were peckish between meals, Ellie’s Diner wasn’t bad either.
TUR 9; GRE 6; MNE 4; NMK 7; AUT 9
Tournament hall (10)
From Turkey quality to…not quite Turkey quality. The setup here was annoying. Four separate rooms for the tournament, three of which only held about six matches each. So there was no chance of being in with the celebs (although that said, Ulf Andersson was in our room for a couple of rounds), and the change to the draw – where teams are seeded by match points and then seed, with game points no longer considered – meant we never got off the bottom board again despite our great results. This, of course, was the one beside the door behind which everyone started chatting once they’d finished their games. Add in no live boards and, well, it’s just as well the water jugs had those nice sprigs of mint in them.
TUR 9; GRE 8; MNE 4; NMK 6; AUT 3
Celebrities (5)
Solid scoring here – Carlsen was present, which we’ve already decided is a 5, and of course was even at the next table in the pub. Add in Anand, Mamedyarov, MVL, Gukesh D, van Foreest, Maghsoodloo and even Bayern Munich, and it was a decent turn-out. The Spanish were in another hotel, so despite getting an official t-shirt again, we didn’t really catch up with them properly this year, so we have to restrict this one to just the full marks.
TUR 4; GRE 5; MNE 3; NMK 6; AUT 5
Amenities (10)
Another one impacted by the fact we were in a town. The hotel was great – tennis courts, table tennis, squash, swimming pool, sauna and hamam. But we were in walking distance of two cable cars and some great mountain scenery, which has to count as well.
TUR 9; GRE 7; MNE 3; NMK 8; AUT 9
Local area (5)
We technically didn’t go on our usual half-day team tour, partly because of the earlier 2pm start to games. But in fairness to the organisers, they did arrange a free trip up the Ahorn cable car and a special showing of the eagle show, which was worth €35. You can’t really complain about that.
TUR 2; GRE 3; MNE 4; NMK 5; AUT 5
Weather (5)
Mayrhofen is known as a ski resort, and this was the shoulder season, so the October weather is typically mid- to high-teens and changeable. Either we got lucky or global warming is real, because after torrential rain on the day of arrival (always fun!), it was 20+ and sunny the rest of the week. Great for hiking the mountains and enjoying the views.
TUR 4; GRE 4; MNE 3; NMK 5; AUT 4
Closing ceremony (5)
There was one, so it beats Montenegro anyway. But it was reasonably functional, and didn’t compare to the rock band Turkey hired, or even the relaxed outdoors ambience of Greece.
TUR 5; GRE 4; MNE 3; NMK 1; AUT 2
Overall scores – TUR 65/75; GRE 52; NMK 52; AUT 52; MNE 39