World Senior Team Championship, Italy June 19-30

macelligott

Ireland is sending 2 teams to the World Senior Team Championship in Acqui Terme, Italy, June 19-30

50+: Alex Baburin, Kevin McHugh, Eddie O’Connor, Brendan Lyons, Gabriel Matthews.

65+: Gerard MacElligott, Kevin James, Martin Lohan, Jack Killane, Peter Lynch.

Teams entered: https://chess-results.com/tnr630078.aspx?lan=1

Joedryan

Best of luck to both teams!

corkcitychess

it will be interesting to see if the Ireland over 50's perform better or worse than the 2018 team in Dresden (they are comparible strength teams IMO)

RooksPawn

Enforced change of plan for our teams because Gabriel Matthews has an unmissable appointment tomorrow (but hopes to join the teams later) while the Passport Office let Eddie O'Connor down. There was a delay leading to his new passport only being ready on Friday. Apparently he offered to collect in person or pay for a courier but they insisted on putting it in the post.

As yesterday was travel day that was a huge blow. Does he have a case to sue the Department of Foreign Affairs?

The only consolation is that he was due to play on the 50+ but is actually eligible for the 65s. So Eddie has been declared as number 2 for that team but will miss at least two rounds,

The upshot is that our 65+ champion and team captain Gerry MacElligott has had to switch to the 50+ team (board 3) and his reward is a game today against the legendary Nona Gaprindashvilli, a great honour. Maybe the Ireland v Georgia match will be on live boards but we won't find out until close to the 2pm start time (3pm local in Italy).

The revised line-ups in board order are:

50+ GM Baburin, Kevin McHugh, Gerry MacElligott, Brendan Lyons and Gabriel Matthews. Ireland are 14th seed out of 23 teams and will be hoping to avoid the bye at a later stage.

65+ Kevin James, Eddie O'Connor, Martin Lohan, Jack Killane and Peter J. Lynch. Ireland are 20th seed of 20 teams but at least there won't be a bye in that tournamnet.

Team lists and pairings can be seen at:

https://chess-results.com/tnr641925.aspx?lan=1&art=2&rd=1 for the 65+

and https://chess-results.com/tnr641917.aspx?lan=1&art=32 for the 50+

macelligott

50+ Round 1

The Georgian team is, seemingly, sponsored by a wine company. They showed up, sober, to play us and fielded 3 GM’s and 1 IM. Their team included former women’s world champion, GM Nona Gaprindishvili on board 3.

Baburin drew comfortably on board 1. But we lost the other 3 games after long battles.

65+

Ireland faced Austria who were about 300 points stronger on every board. Despite this, Jack Killane drew on board 3. The other players lost.

https://chess-results.com/tnr641925.aspx?lan=1&art=3&rd=1

https://chess-results.com/tnr641917.aspx?lan=1&art=3&rd=1

RooksPawn

Congratulations to the 50+ team on winning today - and to Jack and Peter who got draws for the heavily outranked 65+ team.

The 50+ team play Germany-1 tomorrow but they are not as strong as in previous years, and only have four players so you can prepare.

Good luck!

macelligott

Ireland 50+ team lost 1.5 - Germany1 on Wednesday 22nd. Three games were drawn, but the final game to end resulted in a win for Germany.

Things didn’t improve for the 50+ team on Thursday (R4). Ireland lost to Scotland 1.5 - 2.5. Unfortunately we had to give a walkover on board 3 when Gerard MacElligott tested positive for Covid. The three other games ended in draws.

R5 the 50+ team received the bye.

The 65+ team had an excellent draw against Norway in R3. But lost 0-4 to a strong Israeli team the next round. R5 saw a narrow 1.5-2.5 loss to a local Italian team.

Saturday is a rest day.

https://chess-results.com/tnr641917.aspx?lan=1&art=2&rd=5

https://chess-results.com/tnr641925.aspx?lan=25&art=2&rd=5

corkcitychess

thanks for the updates and best of luck in the remaining games

Gerry does that mean you will be defaulting the remaining games? it explains the _/+ etc on your results...sorry to hear about your covid result.

RooksPawn

The European Senior Team Championships will be played in Dresden, Germany, in late October/early November.

Any player born 1972 or earlier who is interested should put their name down (no fee or obligation at this stage) at

https://www.icu.ie/events/1593

Or make enquiries privately with Gerry MacElligott.

At present only one player has put his name down for 50+ so unless that changes soon, ICU will probably only enter a 65+ team.

sodacat11

Good contingent of Irish players, 11 so far, going to Dresden but with temperatures 14 degrees in Dresden and 22 in Malta in October i will be taking my chances in the World Amateur instead https://fide.com/calendar/51221

RooksPawn

Seems that going abroad is the only way for an adult player to get a game of chess.

Kilkenny is the only confirmed tournament in Ireland for the rest of 2022 on the Irish Chess Union calendar. Everything else is a "Placeholder" for an event that may not happen.

Cork, for example, is supposedly at the end of September, but if you search online, what it says at http://corkchess.com/ does not look too promising. And "Limerick Club is now on a summer break until September" so will they revive their tournament or not?

Maybe Gerry Graham (who usually runs these events) can advise us.

Perhaps it will be clearer after the LCU agm next week (on the 20th according to cdeb elsewhere on this board) whether the City of Dublin championships will happen.

I'm more optimistic about the John Bolger Cup pencilled in for December - but didn't they already have that back in March?

Thinking of taking up bridge again...

sodacat11

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119343365#Comment_119343365

Since Covid restrictions were relaxed I've played more games abroad than I have in Ireland and that is despite the fact that I support most Irish tournaments. However, it is not the fault of the ICU that this has been the case as they have done their best to organise events. The problem is with Irish players. One only has to look at the very poor entry for the New year, Patrick's holiday and Easter tournaments to see who is at fault particularly in the 1800- 2300 rating group. One can argue as to the reasons but in my opinion the main ones are that the many of the people who took up chess during the Fischer era have aged and become disillusioned because their ratings have dropped and they don't like playing against kids, this is proven by the healthy entries we get for senior tournaments. Secondly most people apart from the kids don't like three games on a Saturday. Because of the diminishing player pool those of us that are left get tired playing the same opponents again and again, There are very few tournaments for players between rated 1900 -2200 to win unless they want to play in some of the very weak opens like the Irish Ch weekenders. The lack of league chess has got people out of the habit of going to their chess clubs. I know in my own case I don't like playing in tournaments that don't respect rating floors but that's another story.

Dunno what the solutions are, maybe some tournaments where everyone has a chance of winning e'g for narrower rating bands 16-1800 1800-200 etc .

More senior and under age tournaments. Better grading prizes, maybe the ICU could contact lapsed members and organise a tournament for them to lure them back? The return of Kilkenny, the C.O.D and Bunratty as well as the leagues would definitely help. Some innovative thinking is needed to get the numbers up.

RooksPawn

I second that emotion.

A "kids barred" tournament would be good.

(I suppose the way to do it is on the same weekend as some event they all play in, like the Sona Cup.)

They have loads more playing opportunities than we adults and many of them get professional coaching too.

The ICU agm is coming round in September and candidates for office might be asked what they will do about this situation.

More likely, though, there will only be one candidate for each position (if that) because running the ICU is a thankless task.

checknraise

I am a fan of all play alls but they are expensive to run and will usually go on for 5 days minimum in conjunction with the norm tournaments.

It looks like Kilkenny and Bunratty will be on this year which will bring back a bit of normality.