Galway Rapidplay May 27th

The Annual Galway rapidplay will take place on Saturday 27th May in the Bridge Centre, St Marys Road, Galway. It’s a 7 rounder with 15 minutes per game per player and a 10 second increment per move. Play starts at 11am. Full details at Galway Chess.

Tralee 2017

The Tralee tournaments finished earlier today. No Irish norms were gained though Alex Lopez came close. He went into his final round game against Matthew Turner knowing a win would give him a GM norm. But in the end it was the former Countdown champion who prevailed winning the tournament in the process, as Nevednichy and Feller drew. The B tournament was won by Polands Miroslaw Grabarczyk with Conor O Donnell finishing best of the Irish in third place. Paul Walsh won the C tournament and Hugo Fowler the D tournament. Full details on the Irish Chess Union website.

So wins US Chess Championships

Wesley So has just won the US Chess Championships beating the surprise package Alex Onischuk in a playoff after both finished tied on 7 points. Caruana, Nakamura and Akobian were all tied a half point further back on 6.5 in what was a competitive tournament.

A little closer to home there are norm tournaments taking place in Tralee later this week with Collins and Lopez going for norms in the GM tournament while those battling for norms in the IM tournament include O’Donnell, Daly, Delaney and Li.

In the Irish Junior Championships which finished in Sligo last weekend, Limericks James Naughton put in a fine performance to win the U14 outright on 5.5 points while Denis Ruchko who played for Ennis in the last round of the Munster League came joint first in the U19s. Next years Irish Junior Championships will be held in Ennis.

Lopez and Murray finish first in Cork

Local master Alex Lopez and Gonzagas David Murray finished in joint first place on 5 points from 6 in the Cork Congress Masters last weekend. Henry Li finished in third place on 4.5. Fionn O Neill and Devan Patel finished in joint first place in the Major. Hugh Moran, Bryan Chan and Max Tempany all top scored on 5 points in the Minor. Looks like it was quite a successful congress overall with well over 100 participants across the three sections. Full standings are on the Cork Chess website.