Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year and best wishes for 2012 to all.

New issue of the Irish Chess Journal is available

I have only just noticed that the new issue of the Irish Chess Journal is available. It can be downloaded from here. You must be an ICU member to be able to download the newest version.

Ooops I made a mistake with the link I posted, for anyone too lazy to naviagte the ICU site, the link is now working properly

Club Blitz

Well yours truly managed to win the club Christmas blitz last night to claim the coveted tin of roses first prize . Mind you by then I had eaten so much of the food kindly provided by O Keeffes that I didnt manage much of the roses, I think they were left for the bar staff in the end. It must be said that I was a little lucky at times, John Cassidys recent habit of losing drawn endgames helped me out. In fact in the second of our games he was winning when his flag fell, but thats blitz for you. Others who took part were Rob Wall, Joe Cronin, Gerry Casey and the inimitable Andrew Ingram. I think they all enjoyed themselves. Kieran O Brien also appeared for some blitz, my usual trash talking during blitz backfired on me as Kieran went 2-0 up but, after I realised I better shut up, I managed to bounce back with three stright wins to clinch the best of 5 match! The club will take a break next week but we will be back as usual in a fortnight for the first meeting of the New Year.

Club blitz next Tuesday

After last Tuesdays interesting club evening (!) its back to the chess and John Cassidy has asked me to post that the club will have its Christmas blitz next Tuesday night in Tom Steeles. All are welcome the blitz will probably kick off around 9.30ish.

The London Chess Classic has finished and in the Classic event Vladimir Kramnik showed his credentials with a fine victory to clinch the £50 000 first prize. Interesting to see the Kings Gambit make a number of appearances, Short who has been known to play the opening in the past lost with White against McShane, while in the last round Nakamura clinched 2nd place by beating a surprised Adams in a different line of the same opening. It sounds like a fantastic event, Martin O Grady gives us a quick snapshot of the event.

The FIDE Open which ran alongside the main event was won by GM Abhijeet Gupta who beat Gawain Jones in the second last round in what proved to be the crucial match. Another Indian Sahaj Grover came second, with Gawain heading a number of players in joint 3rd to 5th place. Irish players included Philip Smith (33rd), Paul Wallace (51st), David Murray (80th), Orison Carlile (125th) and Eamon O Molloy (194th). 231 competed.

Yesterdays Ennis results and a ‘swampy’ game from Bill McGeary

Yesterday Ennis A made some slight ground on Sarsfield, however one step forward, two steps back as it seems Cork had some big wins in their matches. I heard that some teams defaulted games, if this is true then the MCU really need to look at imposing some form of additional penalty for teams who do this. A team putting out a really strong team one round and then defaulting boards the next rounds can have a disproportionate effect on the end result of the league.

Ennis A 4.5 -0.5 Charleville
1. Rory Quinn 1-0 Jan Heinrich
2. Tony Aherne 1-0 PJ Rea
3. Lorcan O Toole 1-0 Kieran Cole
4. John Cassidy .5-.5 Willie Rea
5. Kieran O Brien 1-0 Pat Meskell

Ennis B 1-4 Sarsfield
1. Pete Morriss 0-1 Paul Walsh
2. Carl Jackson 0-1 Paul Kiely
3. Oliver McNmara 0-1 Frank Noonan
4. Gerry Casey 0-1 Liam O Brien
5. Mike O Donnell 1-0 Paul Carey

Ennis B 2-3 Charleville
1. Pete Morriss 0-1 Jan Heninrich
2. Carl Jackson 1-0 PJ Rea
3. Oliver McNamara 0-1 Willie Rea
4. Mike O Donnell 0-1 Kieran Cole
5. Will O Keeffe 1-0 Pat Meskell

Ennis A 2.5-2.5Sarsfield
1. Rory Quinn 0-1 Paul Walsh
2. Tony Aherne .5- .5 Paul Kiely
3. Lorcan O Toole 1-0 Frank Noonan
4. John Cassidy 0-1 Liam O Brien
5. Kieran O Brien 1-0 Dan Clancy

Best for Ennis A on the day were Lorcan O Toole and Kieran O Brien who won both their games. We were a bit unlucky against Sarsfield, Team Captain John Cassidy had another tough day losing a completely drawn ending against Liam O Brien and Tony Aherne was an exchange up against Paul Kiely but was unable to make headway. Best for the B team were Carl Jackson, Mike O Donnell who had a nice swindle against Paul Carey and Will O Keeffe who played a captains part by stepping in for the last round and winning his game.

By the way a big thumbs up to whoever decided to book the Strand Hotel as the venue. Its definitely one of the better venues I have played in. We even had complimentary jelly beans (good for lining the stomach ) and apples. The matches were played in a 6th floor suite that had panoramic views of Limerick city. It would be a great venue for a tournament and hopefully we will get to play there again. I took some pictures but havent been able to work out how to get them from my phone to the computer yet.

Below is a message from Bill McGeary from America who you may remember from the Ennis Open 2010. Bill wrote a nice article on the tournament for North West chess magazine. Hopefully we will see him in this part of the world again at some stage. Bill says his computer flat out refused to analyse this game for him and me being the sensitive type, I didnt risk asking mine to do so either . Still not sure if this measures up to my game against J Alfred for craziness Bill, as in that game blacks king did far more travelling than either king in this game, still its an interesting one which I’m sure the readers will enjoy!

Just checking the blog and saw your game with John Alfred. I can honestly say that, yes I have seen games similar to that one. I have played a few (be honest Rory, I am a fair bit older and had lots more time to find some really terrible moves!). The Kings Head Chess club in London has a website and one of their favorite ideas for content is to show games where the lower rated Kings Head player took the higher rated outsider “into the Swamp”. Well, back in 2004 I had a game, in an online league, where I kind of got taken to the swamp, only I found a little more unstable part of it. Here is the game, but I recommend that after move 20 you shouldn’t look straight at the board, but out of the corner of your eye… there is a certain health risk. Oh yeah, my handle on FICS is raven

[Event "FICS rated standard game"]
[Site "FICS, Fremont, California USA"]
[Date "2004.07.02"][Time "22:07:20"]
[Round "7"]
[White "sonareclipse"][Black "raven"]
[WhiteElo "2053"]
[BlackElo "2286"][TimeControl "3600+15"]
[Mode "ICS"][Result "0-1"]
1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 c6 6.Be2 Bf5 7.0-0 e6 8.Ne5 Bb4 9.Nc4 Qc7 10.Bg5 Nbd7 11.Bh4 Nb6 12.Bg3 Qd8 13.a3 Be7 14.Ne3 Bg6 15.h4 h5 16.Be5 Nfd7 17.Bh2 Bxh4 18.f4 f5 19.a4 Be7 20.a5 Nd5

Position after move 20 and we have a fairly unorthodox position already. Things start really start motoring after this!

21.Nc4 N7f6 22.Ne5 Bf7 23.Rf3 a6 24.Na4 Ng4 25.c4 Ndf6 26.Nb6 Rb8 27.Bg3 Ne4 28.Be1 c5 29.Rd3 cxd4 30.b4 Nxe5 31.fxe5 Bg5 32.Qa4+ Kf8 33.Rad1 Qc7 34.Nd7+ Kg8 35.Nxb8 Qxb8 36.Qd7 h4 37.Qxd4 Kh7 38.Bf3 Ng3 39.Qd7 Kg6 40.Rd6 Be3+ 41.Bf2 Bxf2+ 42.Kxf2 Qg8 43.Qxb7 Rh6 44.Rd8 Qh7 45.Qe7 h3 46.R1d7 Bg8 47.Kxg3 h2 48.Kf4 Rh4+ 49.g4 Qh6+ 50.Kg3 h1Q 51.Qe8+ Kg5 52.Bxh1 Rxg4+ 53.Kf2 Qh2+ 54.Ke3 Qf4+ 55.Kd3 Rg3+ 56.Kc2 Qxc4+ 57.Kd2 Qc3+ 58.Kd1 Rg1+ 59.Ke2 Re1+ White resigns 0-1

I thought about sending this to Kings Head as a reminder that sometimes the higher rated players have seen the swamp before, but I didn’t want to incite any international incidents and so kept the game score at home. I tried to have a computer program analyze this for me, but it simply refused!

Fortune favours the brave!

In this blog I sometimes like to compare chess to life and there is no doubt that chess can be a crazy game sometimes. I had fallen a little bit behind in my Shannon Masters games lately so even though I was dying to watch Basel knock Man Utd out of the Champions League last night, I had to give that match a miss and instead do battle with John Alfred in a freezing cold rowing club. It looked like the game itself was going to be wrapped up early and maybe I would get a chance to watch some of the match, but then with resignation in the air strange things started to happen. See what you think.

Quinn,Rory – Alfred,John
Shannon Masters 2011 (3), 07.12.2011
[Quinn,Rory]

Quinn_Alfred Limerick 2011 15...Black to play

We join the game at move 15. White has just played 15.a3 and black plays the blunder 15…Kb8? [15...a6] 16.d5 exd5 17.exd5 Na5 18.b4 b6 19.Qa6 Of course white can just take the knight on a5 but this is probably stronger, if I had followed up correctly that is! 19… Nxd5 He is lost anyway so might as well go down fighting.20.Rxd5 Qc6 21.Rxa5 Qxc3 22.Qxa7+ Kc8 Here I was a bit thrown by the fact that my intended Bg4+ can be met by f5 23.Qa8+ Kd7 24.Bb5+ Kd6

Quinn_Alfred Limerick 2011 25 white to play

25.Bc5+?? I moved far too quickly and came up with a real howler, 25 Qe4! is the right way to play. Black has a scary looking check on a1 but no decent follow up.25… bxc5
[25...Ke5! during the game I was very worried about this move. In the post mortem we thought that black would be winning but Fritz shows that white is still ok. Can you see Whites only way to survive?]

Variation - it's white to play can you find the only move to stay in the game

I dont think I have ever seen a position like this in a chess game, certainly I have never played one. All the major pieces are still on the board, blacks king is on e5 of all places, white is a piece up and on move and yet it is white who is in far more danger of losing. He only has one way to stay alive. Did you find it without peeking?

26.Bd6+!! is the move, anything else loses 26… Rxd6 (26…Bxd6 is even worse…27.Bd3+ Ke6 28.Qe4+ Kd7 29.Bb5+ c6 30.Ra7+ Kc8 31.Qxc6+ Qxc6 32.Bxc6) 27.Bd3+ Ke6 28.Qe4+ Kd7 29.Bb5+ c6 30.Ra7+ Kc8 31.Ra8+ Kb7 32.Qxe7+ Kxa8 33.Qxd6 cxb5 34.Kb1 and if anyone is better in this ending it must be white] 26.Qc6+?! [ Again 26.Qe4 is the move] 26…Ke5 27.Kb1 Bd6
[In the game I was quite worried about 27...Rxh2

if 27...Rxh2 things look messy but in fact white is very ok!

but the silicon monster shows no fear and insists white is better after 28.Rf1 Bd6 29.Bd3 f5 30.Rxc5+ Bxc5 31.Qxg6 Rxd3 32.Rxf5+ Kd4 33.Qg4+ Ke3 34.Rf3+ Kd2 35.Rxd3+ Qxd3 36.cxd3 Bd6 37.Qxg7 Kxd3 38.Kb2 and with passed pawns on both wings white must be winning]
28.Bd3 f5 29.Ka2 Rb8 30.Rb1 [30.g4!] 30…Rb6 31.Qd7 Kf6 32.Rb3 Qd4 33.Rb1 Qd5+ 34.Rb3 Qd4 Here believe it or not I had my longest think of the game, Johns repeating moves led me to believe we would be agreeing a draw soon if I played Rb1. Most of the time was actually spent mentally telling myself that ‘no one ever won a game by agreeing a draw’, ‘fortune favours the brave’ yada yada yada. Basically psyching myself up to play on even though objectively the position on the board does not warrant it as white runs a serious risk of losing. 35.g4? Better late than never eh? Oh wait, hang on a sec Rxh2?
[35...c4!

If black bites the bullet with 35...c4 then white bites the dust!

this was the move I was most concerned about and in fact it does win. 36.g5+ was the planned response but it doesnt work 36…Kxg5 37.Rxf5+ (37.Bxc4 Qxc4 38.Rxf5+ gxf5 39.Qxg7+ Kf4 40.Qxh8 Qxc2+ 41.Rb2 Qc4+) 37…gxf5 38.Qxf5+ Kh4 39.Bxc4 Qxc4 and there is no mate on h3 because the rook is pinned ]

36.Qd8+ Kf7 37.gxf5 [Even better is 37.Ra8 Rh1 38.Bc4+ Qxc4 39.Qg8+ Kf6 40.Qxc4 Be5 41.Rb1] 37…gxf5 38.Rxc5 Bxc5 39.Qxc7+ Kf6 40.Qxh2

Quinn_Alfred Limerick 2011. After 40.Qxh2 white is winning

40… Bd6 41.Qh7 Qe5 42.Qh4+ Kg6 43.Rb1 and white soon won … 1-0

London Classic

As most of you are no doubt aware the London Chess Classic is taking place at the moment in Kensington. 3 rounds in and Magnus Carlsen is leading the way on 2.5 from 3 with wins against Nakamura (who apparently has been working with Kasparov of late) and Howell and a draw with McShane. In addition to the main event there is a very strong FIDE open taking place, 2nd seed Gawain Jones will no doubt be hoping to follow up his win in Kilkenny with another strong performance here. He is doing well so far on 3 out of 3 and plays Richard Palliser tomorrow at 4.30pm. Live games can be viewed at the tournament website. Orison Carlile, Paul Wallace and Eamon O Molloy are the Irish players at the tournament.

There is a junior tournament being run by Alexander Baburin next Saturday in the Bridge Club in Galway from 2pm to 6pm, entry is only 10 euro. Alexander is also considering running a chess workshop for adults in the morning between 11am and 1pm if there is sufficient interest. Cost is 30 euro. Contact Alex (baburin@gmail.com) or on 087 9682378 before Thursday if interested. It will be a good chance to get some coaching from Irelands only resident Grandmaster.

Unfortunately most Ennis players will probably miss this as we have matches in Limerick next weekend against Charleville and Sarsfield.