Cork IS running this year

Cork is currently scheduled for the 5-7 October (provisionally). UCD will be running an event on 18th March.

I asked Pete Morris a few weeks ago if Galway would be on and he said that he didn't know yet. Galway is another very good tournament as was Enniscorthy the one time they had it. I'm very much looking forward to Easter,it is so rare that we get a chance to play in an all play all.

Asdee wrote: »

Is the commons inn hotel a suitable alternative?

I don't know it . Any hotel that offers reasonable rates and car parking is fine with me. I think that both Gonzaga and St Andrews schools have shown that good venues needn't necessarily be hotels. Decent lighting, comfortable seating,space, heat and a degree of silence is all that any tournament venue needs but obviously car parking and accommodation need to be available close by too.

Not a huge entry for the Cork Congress yet which is surprising considering that it is usually very well attended. I would have thought that the recent Irish Championships and the current Olympiad would have whetted people's appetites for chess as well as Cork offering the chance to brush off the cobwebs before the leagues begin. There is no doubt that a lot of players in the 1900 - 2200 bracket are simply afraid to lose rating points by entering tournaments where they would be among the higher seeds but it is hard to fathom why the rest of the chess world has become so lazy about supporting weekenders.

Past_Pawn_99 wrote: »

. A three night stay at the Cork venue will cost the same as my 10 night stay at the Malta Open this November, which is not only fide rated but 3 rounds longer with a stronger field and better schedule. This is not the organizer’s fault of course, they can’t make the hotel any cheaper, but they will have to offer more attractive conditions such as what is offered at the Limerick Open, which I am playing myself at the end of next month, or the Gonzaga Classic.

The Malta Open sounds very interesting. Have you played in it before? Is the hotel nice? Do many people bring their wives/partners with them?

Personally I think September/early October is a bad time for a tournament. People have just started school/come back from holidays and are just setting back into routine/still thinking of sunshine at weekends. 

Accommodation wise there are plenty of options around cork. Kilkenny is equally as expensive for accommodation and I'm not sure why you'd need 3 days accommodation!

reunion wrote: »

Does anyone know if Filip Sand is playing the Masters section? It's the default option when paying so my guess is he should be in the Minors?
?

Seems silly to allow such a low rated player in if it is going to mean that five players who are eligible to play are going to have to take a bye. This is exactly the sort of nonsense that puts people off supporting a tournament.

Retd.LoyolaCpt wrote: »

His National rating is 1900+ which is being counted.

There are now 60 entries, with 20 in the masters so Numbers have ticked along well in the last week.

I'm glad to hear that the rating floor is being observed! It is good to see that the tournament is now being well supported, the venue and playing conditions are excellent and the competition should be fierce.

sodacat11 wrote: »

A few late entries have made Cork a very interesting tournament. The top three seeds are all 2200s so not invincible by any means and there are a lot of up and coming younger players playing too. The hotel is very nice and the playing conditions are excellent so it should be a very enjoyable weekend as long as I don't lose a stack of rating points.
A coupe of things I should mention.Firstly it was announced tonight that next year's tournament will be on the same weekend. This doesn't make any sense to me as St Andrews are planning to hold their excellent congress either the last weekend in September or the first in October. Both are excellent tournaments that I would love to see flourish but they are shooting themselves in the foot by competing with each other. March is a barren month for chess, could the organisers of Cork and St Andrews not email each other and agree that one tournament is held around now and the other in March?
Secondly, the arbiter announced tonight that the pairings and results could not be posted on the ICU site because of this new data protection crappy law. This is political correctness gone stark raving bonkers. I cannot believe that to publish a draw for a tournament would in any way break the law.How is it that football fixtures can be published as can golf scores, quotes from people, adresses of people who appear in court etc etc etc . If the draw, results and games from a chess tournament cannot be put online then all news reporting and media activity must be illegal. The whole thing really is a joke. IF the data laws are that strict then what's to stop a footballer who scores an own goal or gets sent off from barring SKY and The BBC from showing the incident? I really cannot believe that any law could be that stupid. Maybe the Cork organisers are just a teeny weeny bit paranoid???

Andrew’s can’t move - September/October is the only time the school permits. I imagine it will grow and grow similar to the way Gonzaga did - Ross and Desmond doing great work; particularly with the live boards this year. I think I’d be more worried about Andrew’s being on the heels of 2 Dublin events rather than Cork. With no Olympiad next year (and moved to August for 2020) - planning should be a little easier for the next few years in that regard. Next year it will probably look something like:
CoD: 6-8 September
Blitz/Rapid/AGM: 21-22 (or whatever suits andrews)
Andrew’s: 27-29 September

I’d hope Cork would again be two weeks away if they are sticking to October so 11-13. Then two further weeks to Limerick.

From memory, Cork suffered last time out (in March) because it was up against about 20 LCU fixtures; a freak accident (I think the LCU had even allowed for it but the date moved one week from the original plan). This time it’s up against some LCU fixtures and the Olympiad, while the date-change will always initially cost numbers. 80 is good in the circumstances - well done to Mark and his team.

Galway will be back in March this year so that’s at least one event - and the LCU have a plethora of fixtures then too. It was only 18 months ago that March was one of the most congested months; Galway, Cork, and the NCC.

April will then be congested as usual so we may move the NCC to March like 2017 (tricky though as LCU fixtures are cleared the weekend we originally planned for NCC in April). At the moment it’s:
NCC
Irish Juniors
Easter Open
Last round of LCU Leagues

Discussions do go on in the background between most organisers - but sometimes it just doesn’t suit particular events to take a better or at least more free weekend.

Cork was a very well run and pleasant tournament which I enjoyed very much despite being completely off my game. It was sad though not to see Philip Short standing in the doorway of the hotel puffing away contentedly before and after each round or to hear his infectious laugh in the bar at night. It was nice that the organisers called for a few minutes silence at the start of the tournament to remember him.
On a lighter note I must tell you about a humorous and instructive thing that happened in the Major tournament. Some eternal optimist was trying to win with King and Pawn v King and Bishop when his flag fell.The players did not know the rules in this situation (neither did I as it happens) so they agreed a draw ,which is what I would have thought was the correct result, however on appeal the result was overturned and the win given to the guy with the Bishop on the grounds that the other player could have promoted his pawn to a knight then facilitated a kind of self mate by placing his King on a1 and Knight on a2 while his opponent (to move) has his King on c2 and his Bishop on a3. The whole thing seems ludicrous to me, but dem's da rules.

Another "hard case" I had once in Australia cost me a high placing in a big tournament and a nice big juicy cheque. In the final round we reached a position after over 60 moves where I had a Ke1,Qf2,pawn d7 and Re8 V Kg8, Rf8, pawns f7,g7,h7 and Qh4 with Black to move. Black has nothing better than a perpetual but instead of accepting a draw he tried to win on time by repeatedly checking me from various squares. All I have to be careful about is that he can't pick up my pawn with a check so I just kept interposing my Queen. There was no increment and we had both long since stopped recording moves but the arbiter was watching and a large crowd of spectators was watching. I tried to claim a draw on the grounds that he was just trying to win on time and then I tried to claim one under the 50 move rule,both claims were rejected and eventually my flag fell and I lost. The arbiter then immediately informed me that we had repeated the same position a number of times and had I claimed a draw by three fold repetition he would have granted it.I thought that you couldn't claim a draw by repetition when we weren't writing down the moves. I still think that if the arbiter witnesses the repetition then that should be enough. Needless to say I was seriously pissed off and even now, thirteen years later, it still rankles when I think about it.
The things that some people do to try and win games really are distasteful and without any kind of honour or integrity. I don't know how they can get any satisfaction by winning with what can only be classed as gamesmanship.
On the other hand I have had situations where I was winning by a huge margin but about to lose on time and my opponent has very sportingly offered me a draw and other games where I was the one getting mashed but my opponents flag was about to fall where I have offered the draw. I think that a draw in those situations is only fair.