Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
© Dr Tim Harding
Last modified:
15 March 2024 2024
Congratulations to Irish teenager, WIM Trisha Kanyamarala, who made her second norm towards the Women's Grandmaster title last month at the Kragero Open in Norway. She scored 5.5/9 including a win against a grandmaster in the first round.
Trisha now needs a third norm but has already satisfied the FIDE rating of 2300 last summer although she is currently just below that figure. Her brother, IM Tarun Kanyamarala, scored 5/9 in Kragero.
Earlier this month (2-3 March) Trisha won the British Women's Rapidplay title in Peterborough. She tied first with GM Danny Gormally on 9/11 though unfortunately she lost the playoff for the Open title. So that is two tremendous results for her lately. Tarun was joint tenth on 8/11 in the field of 217 competitors.
The second DCU Open was held last weekend (8-10 March) had a strong field and ended in a 3-way tie on 4.5/5. Teenage FM Kavin Venkatesan had the best tie-break ahead of FM Colm Daly and. Maximilian Lohr of Germany.
Ruairi Goodfellow won the Majors outright with 4/6. Chima Mgbemena won the Challengers with 5/5 and IM Tarun Kanyamarala won the blitz. It was good to see French-based FM Stephen Jessel returning to competition in Ireland.
The previous Irish tournament was the Ennis Open (23-25 February), which was won by Ukrainian IM Oleg Gubanov with a score of 4/5/5.
Three players finished on 4 points: Romanian IM Mihnea Costachi, James Naughton and FM COlm Daly. English GM Keith Arkell lost to Costachi in the last round and finished in the group on three and a half points. Roy Marshall won the under-1700 section with 4.5//5 while the under-1200 tournament ended ina tie between Jackie Liu and Jakov Jagic, also with four and a half points.
The calendar on the Irish Chess Union website shows a very busy programme of other tournaments coming up between now and June, both in Dublin and around the country. Most of them can be entered online.
Next up is the one-day Drumlish Rapid in County Longford on the public holiday, Monday 18 March. The following weekend the intervarsity championship will be held at DCU. Student chess seems to be on the up. After Easter (13 April), Trinity College Dublin will be running a FIDE-rated rapid tournament but there is no online entry for that yet.
We especially draw your attention to the schedule of tournaments at Easter including a 7-round FIDE-rated open, the 65+ Dublin seniors Championship and a novelty, a 40+ tournament for mature adults who want to avoid playing juniors.
Please also read our page for chess arbiters. This has just been updated with the names of recently qualified FIDE and National Arbiters. It is good to see many new names on the list but Ireland urgently needs female arbiters now. The postponed Ntaional Arbiters course is now due to be held in April; see the ICU calendar for details if you are interested.
Four Irish teams have been entered for the World Senior Championships in Krakow, Poland, at the start of July. We will have a record of three teams in the 65+ championship and one team in the 50+ tournament. The top-rated players on the 50+ team are GM Alexander Baburin and FM John Delaney while the top boards on the first 65+ team will be Paul Wallace and English-based FM Andrew Philip Smith.
Full details of who is going will be released later but the exact team composition and board order does not have to be decided until the day before the tournaments begin.
Ireland will not be represented at the European event in Slovenia in May, so far as we are aware. The Krakow venue is far more attractive and theose championships will certainly have a bigger entry.
The organisation of our teams is being co-ordinated by Gerry MacElligott, who has been doing most of the work, with assistance from Jonathan O'Connor.
See our Senior calendar for more details of events for the over-50s. You must have been born not later than 31 December 1974 to be eligible for 50+ events this year or by 31 December 1959 for 65+ competitions.
It is not too late to enter the 7-round Dublin Seniors (29 March-1 April) being held over the Easter weekend alongside an Open. There is a 65+ tournament and unusuyally a 40+ event. Entries are somewhat disappointing at present but we expect the usual late surge will occur.
The ICU programme for the 2024 Irish Championships does not include a Senior event, though that had been mooted. Maybe it is not too late to organise one if the Easter seniors is better supported.
Please see our seniors news page for more information about tournaments for the over-50s.
For further information on Irish chess, including ratings, how to join, a tournament calendar and a list of officials, please see the Irish Chess Union website.
Irish chess history and news site
Chess discussions on boards.ie