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Irish Championship 2022

sodacat11

It is very clear to anyone that follows chess tournaments online that a lot of our better players are quite happy to play in the 4 NCL and other foreign tournaments but consider themselves above playing in Irish tournaments , even the Irish Championship. As things stand 8 of our 10 highest FIDE rated players can't be bothered supporting their national championship and if you look further down the rating list many are quite happy to support foreign tournaments but not our own. When people stop bothering to organize or sponsor tournaments in Ireland we will know who to blame.

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corkcitychess

I said....looks like the strongest ever team that is going to the Olympiad. It is up to the team captain Carl Jackson to decide the board order

simple maths and current tense (I did not say the strongest team that could go (of course it would be stronger if Collins and Lopez were going)

top 4 boards mean or average is 2400...without trawling through history I am guessing that this is the highest mean rating we will have ever sent to compete (over 4 boards)..I may be wrong but not by much perhaps...

Sorry to hear that David got stitched up according to some sources......the line earlier about Tarun winning justifying his selection does indeed sound like a get out of jail card for the selection committee.

I think Conor , Tom and Tarun should be given the lions share of games as they are the only ones that could get GM norms if they play on top form. Regardless of your opinions regarding the team captains selection (obviously not his fault) it could be a very easy task for the reasons mentioned above regarding norm opps plus covid....5 on the team...% wise odds are high one player will test positive during the event...fingers crossed if that happens it is limited to one player.

sodacat11

An interesting post by spidersweb who as I predicted returned to form in the Irish Championship. Like racehorses who have won certain races before and who enjoy certain tracks he was bound to play well in the Irish Championship. I for one am always glad when one of our "oldies" does well!!

Not sure about his assessment of our Olympiad hopefuls and those who were not selected. Having played Tarun and David myself quite a few times I would put Tarun as being slightly stronger and I also think that he is currently stronger than Sam Collins. Alex Lopez hasn't been very active in Ireland for a long time and I haven't played him for ages so I can't comment. If as spidersweb says David was rated higher than Tarun at the time of selection then I think that David should have been selected. Time and time again we are seeing positions on teams and in tournaments being given to players for all sorts of dodgy reasons and sheer bare faced nepotism. The rating list might not be perfect but it is the only fair and transparent yardstick and should be adhered to without exception. It is not as if Ireland is going to win the Olympiad so it doesn't matter whether we field the strongest team or not, what really matters is that the right players are selected for the right reasons.

sodacat11

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119321540#Comment_119321540

😂 Good one!!

corkcitychess

https://www.olimpbase.org/teams/irl_tea.html

Current team

3 Murphy, Conor E IM IRL 2404 1999

4 O`Gorman, Tom FM IRL 2401 2002

5 Baburin, Alexander GM IRL 2400 1967

6 Kanyamarala, Tarun FM IRL 2379 2004

8 Heidenfeld, Mark IM IRL 2355 1968

mean rating over 5 boards = 2388

we have indeed sent stronger teams...

Bled 2002

https://www.olimpbase.org/2002/2002irl.html mean rating 2458

interestingly Paul and John Delaney both won silver medals and have 50% of Ireland's total medal haul between them..the other medals being won by Brian Kelly and Sam Collins

https://www.olimpbase.org/teams/irl_i11.html

corkcitychess

bored lol

corkcitychess

ditto :)

RooksPawn

Well that was a long rant, with some good points.

I have to agree with you that the selection for the team captain in the Open Olympiad is strange. With all respect to the person concerned, with whom I have the barest acquaintance, surely he is not and never has been an international standard player. He is hardly qualified to decide the board order, choose who plays on which days or give any useful advice. He had better let the team decide amongst themselves and hope there is no argument. No doubt he can carry their drinks.

Maybe even at this late stage the captains for the Open and Women's teams could be exchanged?

I have seen a copy of the supposedly objective scoring form the selection committee was supposed to use to make their choice. Was there really just a poor choice of candidates once the venue was moved from Moscow to Chennai?

I won't comment on your allegations concerning the way the selection of Kanyamarala over Fitzsimons was made, which appear to come close to libel, other than to say the following.

I have looked at the latter's FIDE rated results (under the individual calculations heading at ratings.fide.com) over the past few years and they are undoubtedly quite solid and consistent, but one thing stood out for me. I had to go back to the FIDE Ratings for March 2017 to find a tournament he played other than in Ireland and the UK, and that was in France.

No doubt there were good work and/or family reasons why he stopped playing overseas tournaments once he got his IM title (2018). However it looks to me that a diet of local leagues, 4 NCL and a few round-robins is hardly ideal preparation for playing an olympiad, especially in India, where our new Irish champion (who has lived there for part of his short life) is surely going to find acclimatisation much easier than Fitzsimons would, not to mention the fact that in the same 5-year period the young man has played numerous international tournaments abroad.

checknraise

The open team are all the best players in the country. Having a strong player help them prepare might not be needed or appreciated. If you are looking for someone to help their game you would need a strong gm which would cost the icu allot of money. The women's team would usually get more help during the tournament so traditionally have had a stronger player as captain. Carl was captain for the last olympiad and has lots of experience captaining Gonzaga.

I don't see how where the olympiad is held can have an impact on one's expected results and or selection. David is pretty active and easily fulfills the number of games needed to play.

Joedryan

Plenty of interesting points here, I am back in Barcelona now and without going into it all in too detail, tend to agree you need objective criteria for selection, machines are generally very good, give humans an inch and they will generally mess up without fail.

Apart from that crack on, enjoying all the insults flying, this is how forums should work!

sodacat11

I don't buy what Rookspawn says about Tarun playing more international tournaments etc etc. What he is more or less saying is that if someone is in the privileged position of having a coach and being able to travel endlessly to tournaments without having to worry about cost while another has to work at a 9 to 5 job while studying chess in his spare time then the former deserves the place even though the latter still managed to have a title and a higher rating at selection time??? I'm sorry, I like Tarun very much and think he's a fantastic talent but if I was David I'd be raising hell to have been left out and believe me when it comes to hell raising I'm a GM

Joedryan

What I dont buy is how anybody related to Gonzaga should be given special treatment.

Maybe was how I was brought up.

In Newtownpark we beat them regularly and it kind of made it all the more sweet.

Mod edit - unsubstantiated rumours clipped

spidersweb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119322763#Comment_119322763

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119323994#Comment_119323994

Just read the report? This is not what I think or have imagined it is what they said and done.

"After careful consideration, Tarun Kanyamarala (2319) was selected ahead of David Fitzsimons (2342), mainly due to the former's recent excellent results"

Simple point David was shafted. Had they selected a couple of months then depending on if he, Tarun, was on a high = plus 79 but not a minus -95 Tarun would have been selected correctly.

He was selected for reasons that should have nothing to with any selection, period. It's sad and not Taruns fault either. Makes one wonder how pissed off David will be and maybe why he wants so little to do with Irish chess now? (I am speculating and do not know if this is the case, but I would not blame him for being disgusted and or disulluioned.)

If all things were equal (and they were not at the time of selection) it should be very obvious that David shoukld get the nod over Tarun for very obvious reasons. Just ask how much he has been a part of Irish chess in so many ways and on so many levels? If one player has the higher rating at the point of selction thats it, good enough.

Easy choice, but no, they had toi go the extra mile and as it happens shaft David and smile about it in provate no doubt. Again speculation on my part.The choices they made for team caps over the past two Olymiads were also not without absurdness, but during the last few years nobody cares, me neither.

Just a bit tiring to see the choice not merely made but them trying to have it justified , Team caps far better suited and more qualified people availablke. Instead we have Gonzaga and Gionzaga and last time it was Gonzaga and friends of Gonzaga. If they were the best option so be it, but they were not., Better people were rejected. Thats the point , not that there is so much Ginzaga influence and entaglements, thats fine, and often very good for Irish chess, but when it gets to a certain point it becomes a bit silly and transparent., Carl and Conor are fine lads and there is no critisismm aimed at them. One might be just the way it goes, but two out of two and then... rejecting the other more qualified people? Well overall not a big deal I guess but a bit annoying and disappointing. A bit too much is all I am saying. On the other hand it is the case that ;pts of thrsese people doo good work for chess and that includes the selectors, whom in the context of making these sort of choices I just dont trust them. Just mne and my take and thats all there is too it. Other can disagree and thats fine too. I know all the chracters for more than 30 years and the way these things work in practice. Just sorry to see David shafter AGAIN as he was in 2014? We are are at least spoiuled for choice with so many good players to choose from now.

There is not strongest team and using ratings to evaluate is no use either. How did a 2190 layer do so well in the Irish and yet also lose to a 1935 player? All useful gudes but an Olymiad team can only be judged on it's actual perforr,amce. Main thing is that if the players are performing well then the three players of Tom , Conor and Tarun should get the most games, but nit if they are not perfroming. the over 50s players have vast experience and can be very solid. Hope the temas all do well but sadly this Olympiad will have some really negative aspects. not least being the fact that neither Chian or Russia won't be there.

Another rant over!

corkcitychess

I am now convinced the correct board order for the Irish team should be

1 Murphy

2 Kanyamarala

3 O'Gorman

4 Baburin

5 Heidenfield

and presumably if any covid issues O' Donnell can step is as a replacement?

I would not have a problem if boards 1 and 2 were interchanged but the above board order gives the absolute maximum chance of norms for the 3 norm seekers.

Baburin should be the anchor on this occasion.(points are points and he will likely get more points on board 4) Also I am sure Carl will be a very capable captain. It is not about being a strong player it is all about being a good leader and sometimes making difficult decisions (I was team captains advisor in 2012 ;) when I advised the captain to drop Sam Collins in the last round so Alex Lopex could get a GM norm if he won on board 1 - Sorry Sam but you know it was the correct decision and I accept 50% responsibility)

With the above team order it will make the captains job easier...I would also advise playing Baburin and Heidenfield in all the matches with mickey mouse opponents...(teams with silly low averages) to maximise norm chances for the 3 norm seekers.

It is all about norms...the team position / placing will look after itself.

RooksPawn

There's a lot of sense in that order suggested by corkcity chess in that it's Conor and Tarun seeking GM norms and Tom needing an IM norm, and they can only raise the rating floor of one "mickey mouse" opponent in the norm calculations.

So playing both Alexander and Mark against the first weak team we meet does make sense. Especially as it is likely round 2 and makes sure everybody has had a game after two days.

However it is also possible to discount wins against lower rated opposition in calculating norms.

There's another way of arranging the team to optimise norm chances and that would be to put Alexander on board 2 and give him as many Blacks as possible. Whether this can work I'm not sure as whoever is on one (Conor or Tarun) would need to play nine games.

It might depend on how results and pairings go.

Comparing the performances of Conor and Tarun in the 2022 European Championship (Reykjavik) does tend to show that Conor is more stable and suitable for board one if Alex doesn't take top board. But I was watching some of Tarun's early games live on chess24 in that event and others this year. He is well capable of getting winning positions against GMs with White. His problem then (and in some other events) was clock-handling. His Irish Championship performance tended to show he is getting that under control now and he may be better than Conor at playing for a win with Black in matches against lesser teams.

I have confidence Tom can win many games on board 3/4 if he is played in the right matches.

macelligott

The Olympiad:

The main thing that will effect the Ireland team results will not be board order but the health of the players.

Chennai will be hot in August and it is well documented that Europeans travelling to India in hot weather frequently suffer tummy problems.

It would be wise to look carefully at any medical advise available.

sodacat11

I presume that Aronian will be playing for the mercenary USA team despite being a national hero in Armenia and having won the Olympiad as an Armenian before? It really makes a mockery of international sport when you have players being allowed to swap nationalities/ affiliations especially when there is no parental basis for doing so. Gibson Park, Lowe, Bundee Aki, Carbery playing for Ireland, Rybakina representing Kazakstan, So and Aronian playing chess for USA, Diego Costa playing for Spain. In the Bejing Olympics under the American flag there was a kayaker from Poland, table tennis players from China, a triathlete from New Zealand, a world-champion distance runner from Kenya and a gold-medal-winning equestrian from Australia. Surely the whole purpose of international sport is to compare the talents of different nationalities? I can understand a player being given a choice between his/her country of birth and that of both his/her parents but after that it just becomes ridiculous. Another downside of this identity swapping is that home grown players in every sport are denied their rightful places on national teams because these places are being taken by imports.

RooksPawn

FIDE has announced the 187 teams for the open olympiad and162 in the women's but the composition of the teams is not yet declared officially

https://www.fide.com/news/1843

As I understand it, the American team in the open olympiad will consist of Caruana (born in USA but lived abroad much of his life), Aronian (born in Armenia), So (born in Philippines), Dominguez Perez (born in Cuba) and Shankland, the sole home-grown team member.

Nakamura (who was born in the USA) chose not to be available, I believe. The irony is that if he were playing they might have to put him on board 1 after all, following his Grand Prix and Candidates results, whereas before his classical comeback he probably feared it would be board 4 or nothing.

I wouldn't be surprised if the USA women's team also includes some players born in the former USSR or countries that were part of the USSR before their birth.

sodacat11

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119330546#Comment_119330546

I don't know how true it was but I remember hearing that the Irish team sat beside the USA team at breakfast during an Olympiad many years ago and none of the USA team could speak English.

RooksPawn

Typical sodacat humour! Might have been true of their women's team if Irina Krush was missing. But now they have new young talent like Jennifer Yu and Carissa Yip who despite their oriental sounding surnames are all-American girls.

Looking again at that FIDE list, I see that Ireland's Open team are provisionally 60th seeds which implies a first round pairing against the likes of San Marino or Bermuda. So I expect that Carl in his wisdom will be resting one of his GM norm candidates in round 1 and putting out the top four in round two.

The ladies are seeded 51 and as things stand would meet Bermuda in round 1, coached by GM Nigel Davies. So I imagine Conor will let Trisha sit that one out since she just needs to gain 30 rating points for her FIDE Master title. No harm to blood the relatively inexperienced reserve against that opposition.

Seedings can change, though, when the players actually turn up and captains confirm the line-up of their teams.

BTW I actually agree with Gerry that health issues could be crucial. Maybe in their Chennai hotel everything will be fine but it's not just what you eat and drink. When I was in a poorer part of south Asia some years ago, the rule was only brush your teeth using bottled water that had been purified by reverse osmosis.

Note also there is an Irish arbiter going to Chennai: FA Colm O Muireagain, who ran the recent Sligo congress. So good luck to him too.

Finally, maybe we should be starting a separate Olympiad thread once the team travel?

Joedryan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119329946#Comment_119329946

Indeed, when I had to travel to India for work purposes it was recommended to get various shots, which I assume the team are aware of.

zeitnot

Re RooksPawn's comment above, "I imagine Conor will let Trisha sit that one out since she just needs to gain 30 rating points for her FIDE Master title":

I thought that Trisha had already passed 2300 in live ratings. She was 2299 in the February 2020 list, and from the calculations for that month (https://ratings.fide.com/calculations.phtml?id_number=45004722&period=2020-02-01&rating=0), I think she lost points right at the end (v. either Matthew Turner or Simon Williams). (I am unclear on exactly what constitutes a live rating when there are multiple tournaments that overlap, but I don't think it makes a difference here.) She easily had the required 30 rated games at that point.

It's entirely possible I'm missing something, but what?

RooksPawn

You could well be right. I guess her main interest is to get to 2400 and try to pick up IM norms, though there may be little chance of the latter at Chennai as she may not meet enough opponents with the title.

Joedryan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119319630#Comment_119319630

I said that a long time ago but seems I was wrong, are we still waiting on the ICU to clarify? 🤔

spidersweb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119577341#Comment_119577341

"You are speculating there. Until the ICU clarify we don't know the real situation. Its a strange one mind."

"We do know as a fact that a player was allowed to play in an event that strictly forbids this player and somebody gave this the ok. As to who and the mechanism yes we don't know yet and maybe never will. Ur right that it should be made known what are the facts, so as to avoid further speculation. For me it is clear this was wrong and no "excuse" would change the fact of it being wrong. Just be useful to know and understand it was allowed to happen."

Joedryan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119577437#Comment_119577437

I'm not sure the meaning of this, why defend the ICU, we are the members, we pay our fees so as they do as we say. Its not the other way around.

Still we are waiting an answer which is not exactly confidence inspiring.

corkcitychess

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119577452#Comment_119577452

Maybe someone can ask what happened at the AGM? Did the organisers decide to co host the Irish and Ukrainian chess championships in Dublin? I think they should have consulted the membership before making that unilateral decision.

I would like to be the first to congratulate the two champions.

Tarun Kanyamarala 2022 Irish chess champion

Diana Mats 2022 Ukrainian chess champion

Joedryan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119577784#Comment_119577784

Indeed, but it shouldnt really be necessary to need an AGM question on this, the ICU PR officer should be way ahead of it. All we have had so far is silence.

Joedryan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119577784#Comment_119577784

I missed the AGM, saw there was a zoom call but was on the golf course, or on the way there I think, saw it afterwards.

Anybody know was this addressed?

sodacat11

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119577341#Comment_119577341

All the fuss about a foreign national playing in the Irish Championship yet I am always alone in complaining about people who don't qualify by rating getting in.

On the one hand we have a young woman who had to flee her country because it was being invaded by murderers, rapists and sadists. If that isn't extenuating circumstances I don't know what is. We should show some compassion. Diana is a very welcome addition to our chess scene as far as I'm concerned, she plays in the league and she supports many of our tournaments, probably a lot more than some of the people complaining about her.

On the other hand we have solely chess considerations and players who are not qualified by rating to play in the Irish Championship devaluing the tournament and ruining the enjoyment of some other legitimate players by being permitted to play. Kilkenny is on next month, my rating has dropped below the threshold so I've entered the lower section where I now belong. If someone with a very decent record over more than four decades like me can happily enter a "lower" section I don't see why young upstarts who have done nothing yet in chess cannot do the same.

corkcitychess

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119694092#Comment_119694092

yes I raised it at the end in any other business and made it very clear it must never happen again....the only reaction was the chair saying..."noted"