Armstrong Cup 2017/2018

L1m1tless · 15-09-2017 1:05pm #1

All relevant discussions here thanks

L1m1tless · 16-09-2017 9:24pm

Gonzaga 5.5 Curragh 2.5

Rathminor · 17-09-2017 9:15am

Rathmines 3 Balbriggan 5

cdeb · 21-09-2017 7:41am

St Benildus A 6.5-1.5 St Benildus B

cdeb · 21-09-2017 11:38am

L1m1tless wrote: »

Gonzaga 5.5 Curragh 2.5

That's quite a good result. I see also Dun Laoghaire beat Trinity 6-2. Are we in for a more competitive Armstrong than in recent years?

L1m1tless · 21-09-2017 6:04pm

Perhaps not, Gonzaga were missing some of their big players against us.

Tim Harding · 21-09-2017 6:44pm

cdeb wrote: »

That's quite a good result. I see also Dun Laoghaire beat Trinity 6-2. Are we in for a more competitive Armstrong than in recent years?

So far as I can tell, the Trinity captain forgot to request the customary postponement of our round one matches (because term has not started). Consequently they didn't have enough players. I was told the match was on about noon - far too little notice.

I gather there were four draws; whether there was actually any play on the lower boards I cannot say. Maybe a Dun Laoghaire player can clarify.

Trinity's next match is against Gonzaga. If Gonzaga win you can count Trinity out as contenders for this season.

EnPassant · 21-09-2017 11:52pm

Dublin 3 Elm Mount 5

cdeb · 05-10-2017 12:12pm

St Benildus B 3-5 Bray/Greystones.

We're already 1.5 points behind where we were after the same two games two years ago; playing ok and with a weaker squad, but already fairly clear we'll be struggling to match our haul from two years ago.

Trinity 2-6 Gonzaga on the ICU ticker. So that's Trinity almost out of it already, with 4 points from their first two matches.

mikhail · 05-10-2017 2:44pm

cdeb wrote: »

Trinity 2-6 Gonzaga on the ICU ticker. So that's Trinity almost out of it already, with 4 points from their first two matches.

While their first round result was disasterous, the most anyone took off Gonzaga last year was 3 points, so Trinity have hardly lost much ground there.

cdeb · 05-10-2017 2:54pm

True - but I guess 7.5 points behind Gonzaga after two rounds, having already played them, is almost already too much to allow them mount a challenge for the league I think. They really needed to at least draw with them to keep a title challenge alive. And Trinity would be one of the few clubs who could have genuine hopes of at least challenging for the Armstrong.

(Also, Trinity got 3.5 off Gonzaga in the final round last year; presumably you missed that one at the bottom)

mikhail · 05-10-2017 3:53pm

I had assumed you were talking about the fight for second place!

cdeb · 05-10-2017 7:30pm

Ha! No. It's still early in the season yet; we should at least pretend that a title challenge can be mounted, or that a B team can stay up.

macelligott · 07-10-2017 8:23am

Round 2
Elm Mount 6.5 - 1.5 Dun Laoighaire

Rathminor · 07-10-2017 8:24pm

Curragh 3.5 Rathmines 4.5

Danville · 07-10-2017 8:51pm

Kilkenny 4- Dublin 4 Round 2

Tim Harding · 07-10-2017 9:05pm

Danville wrote: »

Kilkenny 4- Dublin 4 Round 2

It looks like these two and Elm Mount will be the challengers to Gonzaga this season.

macelligott · 12-10-2017 7:32am

League result updates are very slow so far :-(

macelligott · 12-10-2017 8:21pm

R2 Balbriggan - St.Benildus ? Anybody?

cdeb · 13-10-2017 9:02am

Partly postponed due to the European Cup. 5 boards played; no-one in Turkey knows what the score was anyway.

macelligott · 22-10-2017 10:09am

Round 3: Gonzaga 3.5 - 0.5 Elm Mount. 4 games postponed because of the European Club Cup in Turkey

cdeb · 22-10-2017 10:29am

Dublin 7-1 St Benildus B

L1m1tless · 22-10-2017 10:30am

Balbriggan 6.5 Curragh 1.5

cdeb · 22-10-2017 8:11pm

St Benildus A 5-3 Balbriggan
St Benildus A 5-3 Bray/Greystones

macelligott · 26-10-2017 7:22am

Round 3: Gonzaga 6-2 Elm Mount

cdeb · 02-11-2017 8:22am

St Benildus B 3½-4½ Dún Laoghaire

cdeb · 04-11-2017 7:31pm

Curragh v Trinity in the Armstrong is live on chessspectator.com at the moment

The scoreboard says 3-3, but I think it's 4-2 to Trinity - it seems to be counting all the whites as the same team. Certainly it looks like Curragh lost both 1 and 8.

Two games in play, with edges to Trinity in both I think.

Curragh's live streaming seems to have fewer glitches as they've gotten used to it; fair play to them for it.

macelligott · 04-11-2017 7:38pm

Perhaps TCD defaulted on board 8 ?

cdeb · 04-11-2017 7:43pm

No, the board by itself at the top is the other board.

Score now showing as 4-3 to Curragh, with one in play.

The scoresheet is a bit strange because the top boards start off by alternating Curragh and Trinity players as white - and Trinity are white on 1 - but then the last four boards all have Curragh as "white".

I think the score is actually 4-3 to Trinity, who have lost on 8, won on 1 and 7, and drawn the rest. They're a pawn down on the final board, but look to have a nice position for it.

bduffy · 04-11-2017 8:25pm

cdeb wrote: »

No, the board by itself at the top is the other board.

Score now showing as 4-3 to Curragh, with one in play.

The scoresheet is a bit strange because the top boards start off by alternating Curragh and Trinity players as white - and Trinity are white on 1 - but then the last four boards all have Curragh as "white".

I think the score is actually 4-3 to Trinity, who have lost on 8, won on 1 and 7, and drawn the rest. They're a pawn down on the final board, but look to have a nice position for it.

Trinity 5 - 3 Curragh

Tim Harding · 04-11-2017 11:06pm

bduffy wrote: »

Trinity 5 - 3 Curragh

Correct; we won 5-3. I just got home and took a look at their website. I won and so did Ioana and (with a few seconds to spare) Jacob, while Anastasia lost after putting up a good fight when coming in as a late sub.

Jacob's game and mine are truncated by several moves. Possibly one or two of the others also. Ioana's game seems to be complete. A lot of the names of the Trinity players are scrambled.

Apparently Curragh club's clocks, though digital, do not support increments (at least that is what they said) so we had to play the flat 2-hour time limit. A couple of our players were very unhappy about this.

Jacob risked losing on time because of the absence of increment, though, to be fair, his opponent (a rook down) did resign (after making an illegal move) rather than make Jacob complete the game with his last 30 seconds of which a couple had been wasted by the illegality.

The current wording of league rule 7.4a allows exceptions to the Fischer mode "if the home team does not have digital clocks" but doesn't say anything about digital clocks that don't support Fischer mode.
So either the rule needs rewriting for next season or the clubs that cannot support Fischer mode will have to buy new clocks for next season?

cdeb · 05-11-2017 9:28am

Presumably Curragh are taking advantage of the DGT offer if that's the case? https://www.icu.ie/articles/731

Jacob would have been entitled to an extra two minutes because of the illegal move

bduffy · 05-11-2017 10:14am

Tim Harding wrote: »

The current wording of league rule 7.4a allows exceptions to the Fischer mode "if the home team does not have digital clocks" but doesn't say anything about digital clocks that don't support Fischer mode.
So either the rule needs rewriting for next season or the clubs that cannot support Fischer mode will have to buy new clocks for next season?

The end of this rule reads:
In cases where the venue has a set closing time (e.g. 11:15pm), the home team
may choose to use the standard time control of two hours per player. Such
teams should communicate this to visiting teams in advance of games.

This was the first time the Curragh played here due to moving venues because of late finishes (which lead to arguments with venue staff).

It should be pointed out that the clocks were started 10 minutes late at 2:40 and 5 of the Trinity team arrived about 15 minutes later (including Jacob).

I'm sure we'll have it sorted out in future.

cdeb · 05-11-2017 11:32am

Fair points.

You didn't state it explicitly in your reply, but if Trinity were late, then they can have no say in whether the time control used is standard or Fischer. The latter is the default, but the former can be played by agreement of both players. If Trinity weren't present at the start time, Curragh were within their rights to operate standard time, regardless of any venue exemptions. This is also a part of the rule Tim quoted above, but which was omitted from the quote.

Also, only two (as opposed too "a lot") of the Trinity players' names are scrambled on the website - Ioana and Anastasija. Ironically, Tim himself scrambles (or mis-spells, at any rate) the latter in his own post.

It mayn't have been the intention, but Tim's post does unfortunately look a bit disingenuous if indeed the team were late. Trinity can have no complaints.

Though Curragh should have a look at the DGT offer anyway (as should all clubs) I know the last time I played there, the clock was a fold-up travel clock which I think wasn't really leagues standard, particularly with the slightly awkward paddles which were very easy to not depress in error.

Tim Harding · 05-11-2017 4:02pm

CDEB's comments are too harsh.
Three Trinity players including myself were on time. It's good that clocks were only started a few minutes after the scheduled time but in practice that nearly always does happen in league matches in my experience. I am not sure whether all their players were present at 2.30pm.

We only received notification of the venue change from our our captain quite late on Friday (the email to him from Curragh was timed 1336 Friday but only reached us later). The attached map and instructions made it seem only a short drive from the motorway and quite simple to find their venue, which was not the case.

In fact it was about 15 minutes drive on narrow local roads after we took the motorway exit and we had to stop once in a shop at Curragh camp to ask directions. The first two people I spoke to didn't have a clue where the place was.

So clearly one of our cars left Dublin too late because of the inadequate advice, and two were just in time. Future teams going to Curragh will have to allow more time to get there.

cdeb · 05-11-2017 5:39pm

24 hours' notice - or less - is indeed a bit unfair.

However, in this day of Google maps and mobile phones, it shouldn't be calamitous. It's easy to find places, to find routes and to estimate journey times. A text to players that the venue has changed and we might meet ten minutes earlier is all it would, in practice, entail.

If two of your cars had arrived when the clocks were - belatedly - started, the third could have been.

I still think your quoting of the relevant LCU rule was unfairly selective; you left out two clauses which give Curragh legitimate reasons to play no increments. As a result, I still believe Trinity can have no complaints overall.

EnPassant · 07-11-2017 10:32am

Elm Mount 7 Rathmines 1

Master4allofu · 07-11-2017 3:22pm

So how is Gonzaga doing please ? Any link ? I was playing few tournaments in Ireland and I had great time - I have heard that Gonzaga is the best club in Ireland at the moment . Thanks

macelligott · 07-11-2017 10:39pm

@masterforallfu Here is a link to the league results. All round 4 results are not up yet: http://www.chessleague.net/chessorg/leinster/table.php?org=1&lid=93
Gonzaga may be the strongest club in the league - but Elm Mount has a bar (as does Dublin) making them the best clubs :-)

Master4allofu · 08-11-2017 6:50am

Thanks

Gearoid MacGabhain · 08-11-2017 3:47pm

@Master4allofu Balbriggan also has access to two bars ,a restaurant and pub grub we also play on a Saturday.

Master4allofu · 09-11-2017 7:51am

It looks to me that Gonzaga had different team for match with Kilkenny but all in all it looks interesting .Thanks for the link

cdeb · 11-11-2017 3:44pm

Curragh v St Benildus A just getting underway on the liveboards here

cdeb · 11-11-2017 7:54pm

4.5-3.5 win for us. Poor result though. Turned down perpetual in one and lost, and had to settle for two draws due to time trouble I think

L1m1tless · 11-11-2017 9:21pm

Yes indeed, a bit of luck for us. Hope you enjoyed watching anyway!

mikhail · 11-11-2017 11:44pm

Yes, the coverage was appreciated.

cdeb · 16-11-2017 1:22am

St Benildus A 5.5-2.5 Dublin

Tim Harding · 21-11-2017 9:07pm

What happened in Dun Laoghaire v Bray?

cdeb · 25-11-2017 7:51pm

Gonzaga 5-2 St Benildus B with one game postponed due to a clash with international commitments

Rathminor · 25-11-2017 8:15pm

Rathmines 4 Kilkenny 4

macelligott · 26-11-2017 12:55am

Round 5. Balbriggan 2-6 Elm Mount

Armstrong Cup 2017/2018

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