Gonzaga Chess Classic 2015

gonzagachess

Hi all,

The annual Gonzaga Classic begins in three weeks, on the 16th of January. The Classic is, as usual, ICU rated but this year the Masters section will not be FIDE rated, hopefully attracting more of the top players. We had a huge turnout last year, and as all proceeds go towards Habitat for Humanity, I hope to see similar numbers. A few total beginners have already signed up, so players of any standard are more than welcome to play. The tournament, as always, will be held in Gonzaga College Ranelagh, a two minute walk from Cowper LUAS stop. There will be ample parking on the grounds as well.

The entry fee is 35 euro, 30 for under 18s and 40 for the Masters section, with a 10 euro discount for all entries received by the 10th of January.

Further information is available on the ICU website.

Thanks!

Lucena

What's the logic behind not Fide-rating the Masters? Top players being afraid of losing points against lesser lights?

Maybe you could provide a direct link to the site, the ICU website: http://www.icu.ie/events/670
provides a link which doesn't seem to work.

Edit:

Found this for anyone interested: http://www.icu.ie/system/downloads/000/000/205/Gonzaga_Chess_Classic_Entry_Form_.pdf?1418049005

Yreval

Lucena wrote: »

What's the logic behind not Fide-rating the Masters? Top players being afraid of losing points against lesser lights?

There's that, and also the fact that a G/90 tournament such as this is only eligible to be FIDE-rated if none of the participants are rated over 2200. (https://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=172&view=article - see section 1).

cdeb

They used to have the top section FIDE-rated, but in the same room (the hall) as the other sections. This caused problems because of the different starts to each rounds - the two lower sections would be filing in quite noisily about half an hour after the top section had started for the afternoon games. Not ideal.

I think a couple of years they had the top section in one of the classrooms for this reason, but I don't think FIDE ratings are really a big deal for most players tbh, so they've decided to have everyone together and at the same time.

checknraise

Hi,

Any idea on the schedule for the tournament?

Will it be 6 rounds for the masters and what time will the round be on Saturday?

sinbad68

The timea are on entry form , saurday 10 am , 2pm and 6:15 pm , starts friday &7;30 pm

gonzagachess

The current lists of entries for each section are available on the gonzaga chess classic website. Unfortunately I can't give a link here as I'm a new member, but you can find a link on the ICU website.

Lucena

Link:

http://gonzagachessclassic.webs.com/

eclipsechaser

Lucena wrote: »

What's the logic behind not Fide-rating the Masters? Top players being afraid of losing points against lesser lights?

That's a good question and I'd like to hear people's thoughts as I generally help run the tournament each year.

First off, all other things being equal, I would prefer the event to be FIDE rated. There aren't many chances to play FIDE tournaments in Ireland and it would be nice to offer the chance to Irish players.

In truth, there seems to be little difference in the number of 1800+ players entering whether the tournament is FIDE rated or not. FIDE rated generally sees the stronger players avoiding the tournament and more slightly weaker ones turning up to get or boost their FIDE rating. Non-FIDE rated and the opposite occurs.

There are also down-sides to FIDE rated tournaments. It's actually quite difficult to timetable the long time controls. A 730pm start on Friday (if we're lucky) leads to an 1130pm finish (again if we're lucky). This issue arises again on Sunday with an early start and late finish that pushes back the prize-giving ceremony for all the other sections. It also affected people getting trains to Belfast and elsewhere in the past.

As a result of the non-aligned time controls, we found that we needed to move the Masters out of the playing hall and into a classroom to avoid disruption. There was also an extra cost of €5 per person to have the tournament FIDE rated. I'm not sure if this is still the case. Basically, there was a lot of extra hassle, work, money and logistics for very little gain.

I'd be open to moving it back to FIDE rated but I'd need a very concrete timetable. It's already quite tough to manage when there's a new group of TY organisers to break in each year. I think the tournament initially had maybe only 25 entrants. We're now up to 150 or so...

checknraise

My preference would be to fide rate the tournament however I can understand why it is not fide rated due to the time constraints. I don't believe it effects the stronger players entry unless you are talking about the very top players i.e Sam and David who are close to reaching important milestones with their ratings i.e 2500 & 2400.

If the Irish ratings are the most accurate due to all the players will have played more ICU compared to Fide games I think you will find that the 1800 - 2000 players are slightly more inflated compared to the higher rated players. On that basis alone you would expect the higher rated players to gain more fide points, not that I believe anyone under 2200 concentrates that much on their fide rating.

The entry is looking quite healthy at the moment with surely many more yet to register so the format is obviously working so no need to change anything.

sinbad68

Does every one has to bring chess sets & clocks to this competition or no need if you play in masters section , just like last year ?, honestly I would prefer if they would borrow clocks and sets from other clubs and provide them like other tournaments , also they should NOT use the term " masters " section when half the players are 1600 & 1700 rated , " senior" section would be more appropriate.

brilliantboy

sinbad68 wrote: »

Does every one has to bring chess sets & clocks to this competition or no need if you play in masters section , just like last year ?, honestly I would prefer if they would borrow clocks and sets from other clubs and provide them like other tournaments , also they should NOT use the term " masters " section when half the players are 1600 & 1700 rated , " senior" section would be more appropriate.

Some people would be of the opinion that they should not use the term "senior" section when more than half the players are under 65

sinbad68

I think they are ALL under 65 and NO women there either . Pairing list supposed to be out today but no sign .

gonzagachess

The round one pairings for the masters and championship sections are now available. Late entrants will be paired manually. Pairings for the challengers section will be made on Friday.

Masters:

1 Fitzsimons, David [0] : Healy, John [0]
2 McMorrow, John [0] : Daly, Colm [0]
3 McMahon, Daire [0] : Aherne, John P. [0]
4 Mulligan, Scott [0] : O'Donnell, Conor [0]
5 Delaney, Killian [0] : Casey, Eoghan [0]
6 Byrne, Alex [0] : O'Connell, Gerard [0]
7 Murray, David B. [0] : O'Gorman, Tom [0]
8 Boyle, Bernard [0] : Harding, Tim [0]
9 Cichonski, Bartlomiej [0] : Larter, Nick J. [0]
10 Nikrow, Shahram [0] : Jackson, Carl [0]
11 Butler, Kevin C. [0] : Twomey, Pat [0]
12 Higgins, Paul [0] : McCarthy, Tim [0]
13 Nunes, Franklin [0] : Hughes, Padraig [0]
14 Li, Henry [0] : Marzec, Karol [0]
15 Higgins, Michael [0] 1:0 BYE



Championship:

1 Francesco Martire (26) [0] : Aravind Menon (1) [0]
2 Gerard Wallace (2) [0] : Mustakim-Ul Haque (27) [0]
3 Padraig Sheehy (28) [0] : Ciaran Ruane (3) [0]
4 Denis O'Connell (4) [0] : John Hensey (29) [0]
5 Tom Fitzpatrick (30) [0] : Colm Fitzpatrick (5) [0]
6 Rudolf Tirziman (6) [0] : Romans Kremerts (31) [0]
7 Brian Carty (32) [0] : Eoin McNena (7) [0]
8 Mihailo Manojlovic (8) [0] : Muhtarim-Ul Haque (33) [0]
9 Anastasija Manojlovic (34) [0] : David Baird (9) [0]
10 Kevin A. Burke (10) [0] : Tom Collins (35) [0]
11 Brian O'Gorman (36) [0] : Mariusz Lokasto (11) [0]
12 Fiachra Scallan (12) [0] : Agustin Plaza Reino (37) [0]
13 Martin Kelly (38) [0] : Paul Sean O'Neill (13) [0]
14 Niall O'Higgins (14) [0] : Denis Dempsey (39) [0]
15 Mervyn Honner (40) [0] : Peter J. Lynch (15) [0]
16 Odhran McDonnell (16) [0] : Shay Scott (41) [0]
17 Cathal Murphy (42) [0] : Ross Beatty (17) [0]
18 Gavin Doyle (18) [0] : Liam Coman (43) [0]
19 Cathal Walsh (44) [0] : Dylan Boland (19) [0]
20 Alice O'Gorman (20) [0] : Alex Goss (45) [0]
21 Alan Corcoran (46) [0] : Michael Gilligan (21) [0]
22 Joshua Redmond (22) [0] : Patrick Quill (48) [0]
23 Stephen Joyce (49) [0] : Tom O'Sullivan (23) [0]
24 Matthew Gallagher (24) [0] : Benen O'Toole (50) [0]
25 Conor Nolan (51) [0] : Luke Scott (25) [0]
26 Mercedes Plaza Reino (52) [0] 1:0 BYE
27 Finn McDonnell (47) [0] 0:0 BYE

These pairings will be up on the website shortly

cdeb

Can you get into Gonzaga via Cowper Luas stop? Or would you have to walk all the around to the main entrance on the Sandford Road?

L1m1tless

Any of the games going to be streamed live?

sinbad68

CowboyDreams wrote: »

Any of the games going to be streamed live?

@ They don't have enough ordinary chess boards to give to players , let alone have live boards .

@ cdeb , they advertised that they are one minute walk from cowper luas .

sinbad68

Yes , They don't have bread to eat and cowboy says why can't they eat cakes ? lol

sinbad68

post 49 <--- The above post should read " do they have cakes ? "

L1m1tless

is that you Marie Antoinette? I always thought she didn't like to play the Scotch game!

sinbad68

Yep it's good old marie alright, First time I went to gonzaga ,I did not have a chess board , everyone required to bring a set & clock and my junior opponent had a chess set , were rook was giraffe & bishops were zebras !.They provide a few boards but if you and your opponent don't have boards , you just have to go around asking people for a loan .

L1m1tless

haha That's pretty funny but I'm sure its not that bad, The less money they spend the more money for the charity I'm guessing!

L1m1tless

Are the round one results posted anywhere?

sinbad68

CowboyDreams wrote: »

Are the round one results posted anywhere?

@cowboy . They'll give you an inch and you want to take a mile . It is called "gonzaga classic" NOT " gonzaga classy ". To get first round pairing posted online was unprecedented .Result wise , in top section ,round 1 with one board still playing when I left ,all the juniors lost their games to adult opponents and results went according to ratings .It is for charitable cause , I think the charity is to collect money to send couple of gonzaga teenagers to help build houses for locals in africa.

sinbad68

Surprises so far are killian delaney beating colm daly & conor o'donnel beating David fitzsimons ( what I heard ) and henry li beating a 1900 and a 2000 rated opponent and playing colm daly as we speak . where there was no surprises was cdeb opponent on round 1 did play the modern pirc defence as I told him day before his game , any chance of thank you from cdeb ?

L1m1tless

Thanks for the updates!

eclipsechaser

Round 4 ended with Conor O'Donnell on 4/4 and Henry Li drawing with Colm Daly.


Just to clarify a few points:

We have always asked people to bring their own equipment on the entry form. Every year, the number of boards, sets and clocks that we supply increases. This year we are supplying all the Masters and Championship games.

The draw went up early as advertised. As a result, the 1st round started on time.

The majority of the entry fee goes as prize money for the players. The rest goes towards Habitat for Humanity - www.habitatireland.ie/ - which is surely more palatable than going to a private individual, institution or club, as is the norm. (The school also does extensive voluntary work and collections for local causes throughout the year. Habitat is the only international charity).

We never take the ICU tournament grant.

The tournament is run by a new group of TY students every year. I think this year's group have been exceptionally good. Tournament controller, Herbert Scary, is invaluable but keep in mind that there are no big committees or veteran organisers behind the scenes. Despite this, we still have drawn around 150 players to the tournament for the last few years. We must be doing something right so...

sinbad68

Gonzaga is a good competition , but can be improved with
1.Accepting online payments , draws and results shown end of each day and ? 3 live boards
2. The door closer in top section room slams the door close with a bang and very annoying as people keep entering or leaving room constantly and if you keep door open you have he cold and the noise in the corridors.

sinbad68

after round 5 conor odonell on 4.5 points followed by killian delaney on 4

sinbad68

tournament winners senior : 1. conor odonnell 2. killian delaney 3. carl jackson , titled players did not do great .in championship section winner was kevin burke

sinbad68

This morning round in gonzaga was advertised as starting @ 9:30 am but in venue the schedule was changed to 10:AM by posting a couple of notes on the walls which many players did not see , arrived @ 9:15 am to find a group of people including many juniors standing in freezing cold who couldn't get in the building . This happens routinely in many tournaments when times are changed during the tournament , don't understand why organisers can't make up their mind in the beginning when they want to start the rounds and stop messing players around . The door closer slamming the door was sorted by me today by sticking a piece of folded paper near the hinge .One annoying thing is that a few players who preform poorly , simply quit the tournament without telling arbiters and leaving paired opponents with no game ,some sort of action should be taken against these individuals .

Lucena

Regarding people buggering off without telling anyone, if it’s really a huge problem, it needs to be mentioned in the tournament rules that anyone who withdraws without informing the arbiter won’t be welcome to play in further events. If they really want to cover their backsides against people claiming they told the arbiter when they didn’t, you could prepare withdrawal slips, to be signed in duplicate, saying something like ‘I (insert name) inform the arbiter of my intention to withdraw after the round (insert round number)’, to be signed by the player and counter-signed by the arbiter. If there’s nothing in the tournament rules, no action can be taken.

Ideally the tournament organiser will also be open to receiving information about potential improvements, and should actively ask players for feedback.

sinbad68

@ Lucena , The easiest way is to record the game as a loss , so the person waiting at least gets a few points as compensation and the person who did not have the decency to notify the organisers loses a few, Not nice to come early on a sunday morning and hang around for over an hour to find your opponent not showing up . Banning players from future events etc will never happen .Organisers always try to get as many people as they can to play and get their job done with minimum effort , they are not interested in feedback and never see them ask player how they felt or how things can be improved , when I played in uk , there were feedback forms in the tournament there but never seen one in ireland . Would you have any idea how the situation is in other parts of Europe like france would be ?

Lucena

To be honest, in France I’ve never seen tournament organisers ask for feedback, apart from one local blitz tournament that runs once a year. Even the e2e4 events in the UK, and one or two in Dublin, which were excellently run, didn’t as far as I remember look for feedback.

It seems fairly obvious to me that if tournament organisers want to improve their tournament, they have to ask for feedback. Ok, some things are obvious without feedback (tournament hall too cold, for example) and some things are impossible to change (the bar was too expensive, one of the players coughing too much) but I think it’s a shame to pass up on an opportunity to improve things.

Personally, if I was organizing, I’d rather a well-run, enjoyable tournament with 50 players, than a shoddy one with 60 players. Maybe I’m being idealistic, and organisers need a certain number to break even, pay for prizes or whatever. I might be running a tournament at the end of the year, so I’ll see what it’s really like.

Regarding getting points for not having an opponent turn up, I don’t know how it works under the ICU rating system (and I know Gonzaga is an ICU rated tournament), but for a Fide rated tournament, to gain points a game actually has to be played, a no-show isn’t rated.

mikhail

Lucena wrote: »

Regarding people buggering off without telling anyone ... If there’s nothing in the tournament rules, no action can be taken.

Tournaments are free to turn people away on the grounds of poor past behaviour. Most won't for a number of reasons, not least that few people other than the poor guys denied a game for no reason will actually remember the next year. Some of them might have mitigating circumstances, but nevertheless it's public record (via ratings.icu.ie) which two players did this in the Masters.

sinbad68 wrote: »

@ Lucena , The easiest way is to record the game as a loss , so the person waiting at least gets a few points as compensation and the person who did not have the decency to notify the organisers loses a few ...

Ratings are supposed to be a measure of performance to facilitate streaming and ranking, not a reward to hand out to someone whose feelings are hurt.

sinbad68

@ Lucena , Tournament organisers I've seen generally act just like civil servants and don't like creating extra works for themselves by asking for feedback. Private enterprise like e2-e4 which seems to have gone bust would more likely try to look after players needs .


@ mikail .There was actually only one player in masters section who did not inform , john aherne actually did inform the arbiter who forgot about it !.

If your mobile phone goes off during game you lose automatically , is that a measure of rating performance ?. Declaring game as lost is an easy and practical way to deter this behaviour , as I said very easy to let arbiter know you are not coming back for the next round and let your opponent get a game with someone else.

mikhail

sinbad68 wrote: »

@ mikail .There was actually only one player in masters section who did not inform , john aherne actually did inform the arbiter who forgot about it !.

Thanks for clearing his name.

If your mobile phone goes off during game you lose automatically , is that a measure of rating performance ?

I don't particularly agree with that rule. Why can't we just take turns to throw stones at the offender like civilised people? The reason it's like that is that if it was a default rather than a loss, players in losing (or even just worse) positions could arrange to default ("I just hung my knight against this patzer - quick, ring me!") to protect their rating. A player not turning up is a simpler event to deal with.

brianhere

Many thanks cdeb for writing the tournament up, it's available here: https://stbenilduschessclub.wordpress.com/2015/01/20/benildus-win-gonzaga/#more-3894 .
It's true, there was only one person at the top of the Championship section to spoil the Benildus/Blanchardstown carve up. And actually to be honest it is true that he, almost always!, plays b to c5, or c4 if white. (In the end that pawn was too advanced alright but if black hadn't been daydreaming - which was his own fault and there is no excuse! - he had plenty of time to send down the f pawn to link up, which would also bring the rook in early.)

I actually think there was a bit of voodoo involved in that game, clearly there was some hypnotism to cause that daydreaming on time towards the end, otherwise it was all to play for!:-)

But ye played well anyways, and also all the Blanchardstown fellas, worthy winners!

cdeb

brianhere wrote: »

Many thanks cdeb for writing the tournament up, it's available here: https://stbenilduschessclub.wordpress.com/2015/01/20/benildus-win-gonzaga/#more-3894 .

(In the end that pawn was too advanced alright but if black hadn't been daydreaming - which was his own fault and there is no excuse! - he had plenty of time to send down the f pawn to link up, which would also bring the rook in early.)

Ha! Always amazes me who does be reading that thing.

Yeah, I was worried about f5 alright. I was going to play g3 in reply, stopping f4 - but then black could play g5, renewing the threat of f4. Black's king is getting opened, but I think it's safe enough on h8 - I've no DSB - and I'm just in trouble.

I did prefer the game continuation!

L1m1tless

Congratulations cdeb on the victory!

brianhere

"I did prefer the game continuation!"
It's no wonder ye lucky sod!lol But I'd like to echo those congratulations though!

Btw is it a peculiarity of Gonzaga that the championship section seemed to be the biggest? Like in Bunratty, and I think Kilkenny, you get a huge pre1200 section, maybe hundreds, and the next section would have much less, but not at Gonzaga?

cdeb

The bottom section was marginally bigger; 61 players against 55.

It probably helps that the middle section is stretched - 1200 to 1800 as against 1200 to 1600.

But you'd have thought the bottom section would have been bigger with Gonzaga and Benildus so close by. We didn't have anyone in the bottom section, strangely. Bottom section was a bit smaller than in recent years too.

sinbad68

Perhaps , if anyone played any interesting games in gonzaga they can posted here ?. All I could manage was a checkmate with a bishop & knight .

cdeb

Bishop, knight and pawn, technically. Which made it a lot easier as the king had to stay in the corner to stop the pawn queening.

(Interestingly, it wasn't the mating corner where mate got delivered. But having to keep an eye on the pawn made a huge difference)

Just saying!

Nice mate though.

mikhail

cdeb wrote: »

Bishop, knight and pawn, technically. Which made it a lot easier as the king had to stay in the corner to stop the pawn queening.

(Interestingly, it wasn't the mating corner where mate got delivered. But having to keep an eye on the pawn made a huge difference)

Just saying!

Nice mate though.

I see you've played knifey-spooney before.

Ciaran

sinbad68 wrote: »

Perhaps , if anyone played any interesting games in gonzaga they can posted here ?. All I could manage was a checkmate with a bishop & knight .

All my games were rubbish unfortunately.

sinbad68

Here , one of my games from gonzaga , one of best comebacks I've done , checkmate with knight & bishop against an opponent around 1700

http://www.chess.com/emboard?id=2383050

brilliantboy

sinbad68 wrote: »

Here , one of my games from gonzaga , one of best comebacks I've done , checkmate with knight & bishop against an opponent around 1700

http://www.chess.com/emboard?id=2383050

Wow, poor guy