Irish Chess Championships 2014

Sparks

From the ICU website (with permission):

Irish Championship Details are now available

This year's Irish Chess Championship will be held in Trinity College, full details are now available here. Online entry will open soon.

Entry form here.

Irish Senior Championship
9 Round
FIDE rated
Closed Swiss Event
Saturday July 5th to Sunday July 13th 2014
For Irish players rated over 1900 on the May 2014 ICU published rating list or over 1900 on the May 2014 FIDE list

Venue:
Round Times
Goldsmith Hall,
Trinity College Dublin

Rate of Play:
90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the
game with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move one.

Irish Intermediate Championship
5 Round FIDE rated Closed Swiss Event
For players rated between 1500 and 1899 on the May 2014 ICU published rating list
Friday July 4th to Sunday July 6th 2014

Venue:
Trinity College Dublin

Rate of Play:
90 minutes for the entire game with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move one.

Irish Junior Championship
5 Round FIDE rated Closed Swiss Event
For players rated up to 1499 on the May 2014 ICU published rating list
Friday July 4th to Sunday July 6th 2014
Venue:
Trinity College Dublin
Rate of Play:
90 minutes for the entire game with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move one.

Irish Ladies Championship
5 Round FIDE rated Closed Swiss Event
Friday July 4th to Sunday July 6th 2014
Venue:
Trinity College Dublin
Rate of Play:
90 minutes for the entire game with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move one.

Irish Open Weekender Championship
5 Round FIDE rated Swiss Event
Friday July 11th to Sunday July 13th 2014

Venue:
Trinity College Dublin

Rate of Play:
90 minutes for the entire game with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move one.

Prize Fund

Irish Chess Championships 2014

1st|€1,000.00
2nd|€600.00
3rd|€400.00
Best under 2100|€200.00


Irish Intermediate Championship

1st|€500.00
2nd|€250.00
3rd|€150.00


Irish Junior Championship

1st|€500.00
2nd|€250.00
3rd|€150.00


Irish Women’s Championship

( This prize fund is subject to entry )
1st|€500.00
2nd|€250.00
3rd|€150.00


Irish Weekender Open Championship

1st|€600.00
2nd|€400.00
3rd|€200.00
Grading Prizes|€ 250.00

Full details (including restrictions, accommodation details, etc, etc) in the entry form here.

historian

Let's hope somebody isn't rated 1900 (check the small print).

On a more significant note, I see last year's experiment of going down to 1800 in the Senior has been abandoned.

cdeb

Interesting also that the Irish Ladies' tournament is now included. Last run alongside Kilkenny two years ago, I think, which seemed a bit silly as it meant the competitors couldn't enter one of the most popular weekenders.

RQ_ennis_chess

Wasnt the Irish Ladies Championship played for last year in UL also albeit with small numbers? I thought Diana Mirza won it.

historian

@RQ_ennis_chess
Correct on both counts.

Past_Pawn_99

Hope they can organize some mid-week tournaments like the AM and PM tournaments last year. Was hoping to play them and sad to see that they weren't included this year.

TOMP

High entry fees and relatively low prizes

historian

@Past_Pawn_99
The "flyer" states that, "There may well be other mid week events arranged, details yet to be finalised" so don't give up hope yet.

mikhail

TOMP wrote: »

High entry fees and relatively low prizes

€50 for the weekenders is rather steep, given you could enter Malahide for €35 until yesterday.

Past sell by Date

In the past the junior, intermediate and weekender have always been expensive, All to finance the top event for the elite ivory tower dwellers

eclipsechaser

mikhail wrote: »

€50 for the weekenders is rather steep, given you could enter Malahide for €35 until yesterday.

You'd think there'd be some early entry discount or multiple entry discount. That said, FIDE rated events used to require the organiser to pay FIDE an extra sum of money. Not sure if this is still the case...

Past sell by Date

Even in the past when the junior , intermediate, weekender were not fide rated. The entry fee was 50 euro. I would also say that the playing conditions offered to these events were often sub standard..

L1m1tless

I have only played in this event once, e2e4 were running it. I think the €50 was worth it, the venue was excellent (Green Isle) as well as the organisation of the tournament, but I cant comment on other years.

cdeb

There was one year there was one of those African Sunday Church singing sessions on the same floor! That was quite distracting... The main event was on a lower floor, so don't know if it affected them, but I think that was the tournament with a leak in the roof or really loud fans or something. Bit of a disaster all round.

The e2e4 tournament have a very good reputation though.

L1m1tless

Are e2e4 on board this year? There was another African church group at the final of the leagues this year. The noise was very distracting.

cdeb

They were there last year too. I guess they have the venue every Sunday. The Teachers' Club is a nice venue, but clashes with stuff like that do need to be avoided alright.

Don't know if e2e4 are on board this year; I actually mentioned them as a follow-on from your post, but yeah, don't think that's confirmed (or even necessarily on the cards) at all.

L1m1tless

Yeah its a pity, I'm looking forward to it anyway.

EnPassant

The main event is looking quite strong: http://www.icaa.ie/icu2014/entry_list.php?tbl_name=Irish_Senior_Championships

Lucena

I thought the cut-off point for accepting entries was 1900 elo, but I see a couple of players just under that. I assume this means they’re not that strict about the minimum 1900 limit, or are there other criteria taken into consideration, such as previously having been over 1900?

mikhail

Lucena wrote: »

I thought the cut-off point for accepting entries was 1900 elo, but I see a couple of players just under that. I assume this means they’re not that strict about the minimum 1900 limit, or are there other criteria taken into consideration, such as previously having been over 1900?

Usually there's some leeway at the discretion of the controller. Some controllers will have a strict cut-off in mind, some will accept a FIDE rating over 1900, some will allow promising juniors extra leeway, etc.

Ciaran

I think an 1850 Fide or Irish rating is the cut off this year.

Lucena

Correct Ciaran. It's officially 1900 but with a 50 point tolerance.

I've managed to find this information:

"The ICU has agreed a tolerance of 50 points for entry to the Irish Senior, so any Irish player who's ICU rating on the May official published list is 1850 or higher ( or the FIDE May list of 1850 or higher ) may enter the Irish Senior Championship."

http://www.icaa.ie/icu2014/

EnPassant

The first round draws are up:-
http://www.icu.ie/misc/games/sm/icu2014/senior/ (30 players)
http://www.icu.ie/misc/games/sm/icu2014/inter/ (28 players)
http://www.icu.ie/misc/games/sm/icu2014/junior/ (46 players)

L1m1tless

Good Luck to everyone playing, See you there later.

Richthetich

The Junior section is totally distorted. The players that didn't play in round one all received one point. Round one was forty five minutes with a ten second increment. From round two, twenty six people are on one point so if you played in round one and lost or drew you have no chance at winning the competition because someone with five out of five games will win it.

I personally withdrew in disgust.

Ciaran

Gerry MacElligott and John Redmond seem to have only made 14 moves in 3 and 3/4 hours. And I thought I played slowly at times!

Past sell by Date

No results from the intermediate or junior. live boards not working,
Another badly run irish tourney, Come back e2e4 please .....

cdeb

Interesting last move for Gordon Freeman against Sam!

Live boards seem to be working ok now; were they down earlier today?

Ciaran

cdeb wrote: »

Interesting last move for Gordon Freeman against Sam!

Live boards seem to be working ok now; were they down earlier today?

Only 4 were working earlier. There were supposed to be 8.

cdeb

Ah, ok.

There's still only four at the moment (all finished). So I presume it's the same four.

Past sell by Date

Why cant you download the irish senior games ? It downloads ok but there are no moves in the pgn file. Come back e2e4 please......................................

cdeb

At least the draws for the other tournaments have been updated.

Past sell by Date

I heard that you get paid <snip> to run this tournament, I think in this age of slavebridge labour, the ICU would be getting a better service than this.....come back e2e4 please...........

Mod edit - it's not fair to speculate on what people may or mayn't be being paid

Sparks

Really? I heard you got membership of the Illuminati for running the tournament. But you had to be a lizard person to apply to run it. I read it on the interwebs, it must be true...

mikhail

Sparks wrote: »

Really? I heard you got membership of the Illuminati for running the tournament. But you had to be a lizard person to apply to run it. I read it on the interwebs, it must be true...

It's a ten day event. Not unreasonably, the TC often takes a fee. I don't know who's running it this year or whether they've taken one - it varies.

EnPassant

The 3rd round draw for the Senior is up and the games for rounds 1 and 2 can be downloaded ...

Sparks

mikhail wrote: »

It's a ten day event. Not unreasonably, the TC often takes a fee. I don't know who's running it this year or whether they've taken one - it varies.

Yeah, but from what I remember from running clubs in TCD, while the college itself does get a fee for renting out the rooms and whatnot, the actual club doesn't make very much out of things at all. The shooting club is the largest club in TCD and in ten years the largest net gain I can remember us making from a match or a nationals was about 150 quid even with outside sponsorship (and the financial figures would be pretty much the same between shooting and chess).

So saying someone's making out like a bandit... well, Carl Sagan's maxim about extraordinary claims would apply

cdeb

He's not saying they're making out like a bandit; he's just saying that someone's getting paid to be Tournament Controller (which they are; I don't think it's fair to speculate on how much) and some things aren't working (weekender tables slow to update, only four live boards instead of 8, pgns not available). I think that's fair enough.

(TC = Tournament Controller, not Trinity College)

Worth noting that 1 and 3 have been rectified afaik, and we'll see how 2 goes today. So the problems have been noted and are being addressed, which I think is fair enough.

Sparks

The live games site has been reset for the 1400 start...

Sparks

cdeb wrote: »

(TC = Tournament Controller, not Trinity College)

Ahhh. Now it makes sense.

Sparks

...and they're off.

Zugszwang

Today could be a big day in determining the winner of the Irish, with Collins white against Fitzsimons on board 1 . Collins has easily beaten two players he might have dropped half points to, while Fitzsimons has dropped a half point already. It's a chance for Collins to swat away a rival while Fitzsimons absolutely needs a result to fight for the title.

I think other predictions have underestimated Collins chances of wining this event. He's closer to being a GM that any of the others are of being an IM! Over 9 games, this difference is very likely to tell, unless he's in poor form, and by all accounts he's not. I predict Collins will win the event on 7.5 or 8 points, though I'll eat my words if Fitzsimons wins today :-)

cdeb

Big win for Sam; moves to 4/4 now. Behind him on board 2, Stephen Brady and Colm Daly drew, so Stephen Jessel moves into second on his own, a half point behind Sam, with Brady, Daly, Short and Conor O'Donnell a half point back again. A point isn't a huge gap - a head-to-head win and it's gone - but it's certainly looking good for Sam so far, having just beaten the second seed. It looks like he'll be up against Jessel tomorrow, unless colours come into it (unlikely I think), in which case he'd have black against Colm.

EnPassant

The 5th round draw is up: Jessel v Collins on board 1.

There was an interesting finish in the Conor O'Donnell v Mel O Cinnéide game today - maybe 42 .. b5 might have prevented what happened.

L1m1tless

Collins looks to be on the back foot v Jessel

Sparks

A draw for Collins-v-Jessel in the end. Sam's playing Colm Daly tomorrow, I get the feeling a lot of people will be watching that one...

L1m1tless

Lucky escape, Jessel was almost +3 around move 36 but was in bad time trouble.

cdeb

A nice queen sac for mate for Sam. Hard to see who can stop him now. Stephen Brady is the only one of the top six he hasn't faced yet, and he's way behind, having lost today. Sam may well face a non-titled player in the next round.

Sparks

Didn't think you'd see such a clear tactic at that level allright instead of agreed draws or resignations. What odds that he'll be over 2500 by the end of the championships?

cdeb

Good point. I think all the ratings on the site are FIDE ratings, in which case he's up about 9 points so far. That's 2497. Nasty! Though it's a 25 point gain this year so far, which is a lot.

Of course, the norms still have to come too. I think he has two at the moment?

But it's still a positive for him to be playing so well.

mikhail

cdeb wrote: »

Of course, the norms still have to come too. I think he has two at the moment?

Yes, he needs one more. A clubmate of his was talking about this with me, and reckoned that if he breaks the 2500 mark in a tournament, he'll likely get a norm too. I don't think it's possible to get a norm in the Irish Ch, at least not a GM norm.

That said, I presume that if he breaks 2500 here the rating requirement is satisfied forevermore, and he just needs another norm.