St Benildus take first ever NCC

St Benildus marked the 50th National Club Championships with our first ever win, and in doing so will travel to Albania for the European Club Cup in October as champions of Ireland.

Upcoming tournaments

A note of a couple of upcoming tournaments which may be of interest.

John v GM

The top-board match between John and Alex Baburin is the highlight of the opening round of the Sligo weekender starting at 7pm tonight. Diana Mirza will be providing commentary on her Twitch channel here.

Upcoming junior events

There’s a couple of upcoming events which may be of interest to some of the lower-rated players in the club.

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.

Irish Championships review

A 1-2 at the weekday tournament, and two mid-table finishes at the Irish Championships.

Gerry pipped in over 50s

Gerry lost out on retaining his Irish Over 50s title on tie-break over the Easter weekend.

Huge gains in John Bolger Cup

Four of the club’s juniors shared 500+ rating points between them at the John Bolger Cup in Coláiste Éanna last month – and only that there was a derby in the last round of the Masters section, they could each topped 100 points of a gain each.

Double Irish champions in Ennis

The Irish Junior Championships in Ennis at the weekend only had two St Benildus players – but they both came away with titles.

Underage and overage tournaments coming up

The real-life tournaments are coming thick and fast – this weekend is the Irish Junior Championships in Ennis, while next week is the over 50s and the over 65s in the Talbot Hotel in Stillorgan. There’s some St Benildus players already registered in both – full details on the ICU calendar if you want to join them!