St Benildus chess club won the Irish National Club Championship which was held in Ennis last weekend, winning three of their matches and drawing the fourth to finish on 7 points. It was an impressive performance from St Benildus, especially when one considers they were without some strong players for this event.
The home team Ennis were the top seeds but got off to a rocky start, with a narrow loss to Galway. Wins in the subsequent rounds against UCD (5-1), Limerick (6-0) and Gonzaga (4-2) were not enough to catch St Benildus as we finished in second place on 6 points.
It was close, as in the last game of the event to finish, and with Malahide leading St Benildus 3-2, Jacob Flynn of Malahide faced off with Leon Putar of St Benildus. A win or draw for Jacob would mean that Ennis would win the event on tiebreak from Malahide in second and St Benildus in third as we had better game points. Alas, from an Ennis perspective, Leon kept his cool and what looked like a good position for Jacob, deteriorated to a drawn, and eventually a lost one, meaning the match overall was drawn and St Benildus won the title.
The 2023 European Club Cup takes place in the seaside resort of Durres in Albania later this year and with up to 5 teams from each participating federation competing, its sure to be one of the largest ECC yet!
Ennis Chess 
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